Come the Slumberless to the Land of Nod

Centering on love, motherhood, a friend’s murder and the resulting trial, and a parent’s death, the poems in this fourth collection from Barnard Women Poets Prize winner Brimhall (Our Lady of the Ruins) pulse with energy. Many employ Old Testament motifs, as in “Lullaby on Mount Moriah,” where the poet writes about Isaac or perhaps her own son: “The why of you a radiant devil-fish, the what of you/ a fat little soul bluing at the edges.” Titles are often repeated (“Dear Eros,” “Dear Thanatos”), building the collection’s core on these themes. Three long sequences seem closer to essays than prose poems but sail, at times, with beautiful passages. Throughout, the poet’s touch can be light, as when she describes milkweed seeds (“Last night, I slipped my finger in the milkweed,/ my hand doing the wind’s work”), but she never runs from life’s cruelties.