I’m only about halfway through, but I can recommend Gabrielle Myers’s new collection of poems, Points in the Network.

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While I was pleased to discover, upon retirement, that my reading abilities had not atrophied as much as I’d feared, I have continued to struggle with poetry.

And not for lack of trying. While I managed to work my way through Naked Poetry, a collection of “Recent American Poetry in Open Forms” (the term recent being relative to its publication in 1969), it took a long time. I tired quickly, so I’d read one poet’s section and then set the book down for a while. Worse, I never felt that I was getting the poems, even when I was somewhat familiar with the poet. 

I am not struggling that way with Points in the Network — or, at least, I am struggling less as I make my way through the collection. I don’t think Myers’s poetry is easier, per se, but her grounded imagery and luxurious language create an experience that is challenging enough to engage me, but accessible enough to keep me from being discouraged. I’m enjoying it.

She’s subtle, too. The “network” of the title is invoked explicitly in a couple places, but for the most part it’s suggested — the reader is left to make the connections from her imagery.

I came in expecting a focus on nature, an expectation that was reinforced both by her earlier work (I know I’ve read Too Many Seeds, though I can’t find the book) and by the blurbs on the back of the book (“her pristine attention to nature”; “alive to the bonanza of the natural world”). And nature is certainly at the center of many of her poems, grounding her meditations. But — given that expectation — there’s a surprising level of attention to urban life and its relation to experience and imagination.

I should mention, I suppose, that Myers is a former colleague of mine, so I’m not 100% unbiased. That relationship explains how I found her book, for example; I try to support the work of family, friends, and colleagues when I can.

But that doesn’t affect how much I admire the work (or whether I choose to write about it): these are good poems, and I can definitely recommend them.