Multitudes.

Multitudes by Afaa Michael Weaver Sarabande Books, July 2000, $14.95, ISBN 1-889-33041-8

Afaa Michael Weaver's new and selected poetry collection, follows the poet's career across his five books published since 1985. His poems, grouped chronologically, reveal that, while his tools and conventions have evolved over the years, the voice is consistently that of a romantic who does not compromise strength for sentimentality. Poems such as the inaugural "Water Song" are marked by quiet reverence and explore an eternal present in which "The dead come back to old folk in the country to talk." Equally indicative of the poet's sense of spirituality is Weaver's incantatory tone, at once Baptist preacher and secular philosopher. Indeed, Weaver eulogizes the dead and the living with critical acuity, honoring those whom society tends to ignore. Weaver writes wittily with self-deprecating charm as well. For example, in the love poem, "Sub Shop Girl," he is "probably the only man who puts strategy/ in a Saturday night foray to the sub shop."

For all its generosity, Multitudes is the poet's explorations of deep abstraction and sound work, which may only be of interest to poetry insiders and academics. The final poem, an invective for poet and critic Jorie Graham, "Composition for White Critics," riffs brilliantly on commercial images and obscure references to the work of Modernist and post-Modernist poet's framing (including Ms. Graham's), an exclusively insider commentary.

Yet, Multitudes is an important book for the scholar and the casual reader alike. Poems within, such as Talisman reflect some of the most important literature we have regarding the relationship between an African American son and mother. Weaver explores the influence of this dynamic on the way black men learn to negotiate the particularities of our culture in poems tellingly titled `Humility,' "Mama's Hoodlum" and "House Training."

Gregory A. Pardlo is completing an MFA at New York University and is a New York Times fellow in poetry.