What the lyric is

Sara Nicholson's second collection, What the Lyric Is, is a sharp, humorous, and poignant exploration of how the lyric in poetry both fits and fails us. Conversant with dead poets, but skeptical of their conceits, Nicholson mixes lightness with melancholy in poems with titles like "Dante in Arkansas": "My breath's been / Doomed to harmonize with fog." What the Lyric Is turns the pastoral tradition upside down, ever careful to remind us of the price for all this reflection and merriment--"Acorns are beautiful only to those / Who've never had to clean them up."