Thomas, Robert. Dragging the Lake.

THOMAS, Robert. Dragging the lake. Carnegie Mellon University Press. c2006. 80p. 0-88748450-6. $14.95. SA

Each line from the poems in this collection suggests that writing poetry is the most natural thing in the word for Robert Thomas. While they are diverse in content, these poems are consistently clever and moving. Thomas's tone can be intimate and conversational, as it is in the poem "Dragging the Lake" when he writes: "How could I not love someone / whose quest is for just the right place to read / every book in the library?" or artfully detached, such as when he is writing from the perspectives of Leos Janacek and Jacqueline du Pre. Thomas possesses a great range of knowledge, and he knows how to use it to give his poems just the right edge. Rather than employ this knowledge as a means of setting his poems and himself on a higher plane than his readers, he uses it to ground and enrich his writing. In the poem "Galileo's Notes," for instance, Thomas uses the figure of Galileo as a way of segueing into meditations on his father and moments of intimacy experienced during youth.

Like the musicians he likes to write about, Thomas has a knack for making music; but he does so with his words. This is the work of a cultured, mature writer who is down-to-earth enough to observe: "To see a person just being / an animal drinking at a river, taking its time / is almost obscene." But he is also sensitive enough to write: "We love most / the places inside us even God has not seen." Beth Lizardo, College Student, NY

S--Recommended for senior high school students.

A--Recommended for advanced students and adults. This code will help librarians and teachers working in high schools where there are honors and advanced placement students. This also will help extend KLIATT's usefulness in public libraries.