Lawrence Raab is a mood catcher, a reverie spinner, a recorder of secrets pure and simple. He writes about grass and trees, the odd drift and crash of relationships, the meandering currents of conversations, and the ripples of the mind that nudge memories and "uncertain desires" from wordless hiding places out into the tricky light of expressed thought. There is humor in these lovely and intelligent poems, and much more: an understated understanding of the intensity of joy and sorrow, the mystery of happenstance, and "that affection / we feel for the world / when it lies at peace around us." Raab is able to describe the most elusive and private inclinations: our penchant for reinventing the past and hoarding little stories to tell ourselves on lonely nights, or our grave efforts to control our feelings and fantasies, our confusion and foolishness. And most of all, he muses on chance and what might have been if our lives "swerved off for the smallest reason." A sheaf of beautiful, tender, and wise poems by a singularly talented and increasingly praised and prized poet. ~--Donna Seaman

The supernatural moves to the forefront in Raab's ( Other Children ) fourth collection: ghosts, angels, outer space, dreams. While such topics prompt mediocre poets into cliches, Raab's highly lyrical meditations are so concrete that readers are sucked into his magical netherworld. He opens a long sequential poem, for example, by issuing the directive to ``Look at what we're looking at / right now--that tree, that hill. / Who can see it for itself?'' Presented in this context, even mundane objects assume an ethereal aspect: crows in a snowstorm, a dog, dead trees. The poet's alternating use of a collective ``we'' in referring to the speaker and an all-encompassing ``you'' for those addressed provides an innovative variation on what would otherwise be a hackneyed style. In the book's final 20 pages, where the poet addresses various family members by name, universal concepts such as beauty and truth take on a greater specificity. His musings reach their climax in a poem dedicated to an older brother. Here, his poetic powers at their height, the speaker questions what went wrong between them, imagines all the experiences they might have shared, and for the first time initiates conversation with this sibling who died before his own birth. Selected for the National Poetry Series by Stephen Dunn. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

In ``Since You Asked,'' a poem that might serve as a model for Raab's approach in this highly readable and enticing collection, the poet imagines the perfect dinner party, with endless glasses of wine, numberless chickens, congenial guests, and even dead trees that miraculously spring back to life. Raab is a poet of possibilities, and this collection describes the ``other world''--the virtual realities surrounding and defining ordinary life. Into the familiar world of suburban family life intrude the eerie presences of monsters, aliens, ghosts, and dead brothers almost, but not quite, forgotten. As Raab says, ``Don't we look beautiful in the picture/ no one ever took?'' Each poem takes the form of an overheard conversation. A lost mother returns, the elm trees of childhood shine in the sun, and the poet shows us how ``to uncover some personal design in everything.'' Highly recommended.-- Daniel L. Guillory, Millikin Univ., Decatur, Ill. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.