This is not a book for the casual reader of poetry. There is tremendous power in the writing but the manner in which images and sub-themes move through the collected poems to bring them together into one requires several readings if one is to begin to understand the achievement. The closest example that comes to mind is Transtromer's "Baltics".

The poems as individual pieces have great beauty on their own. Readers familiar with Ms. Mead's earlier book, "The Lord and the General Din of the World", will find the same clear voice and the mastery of language. I was surprised (pleasantly) to find "The Prairie as Valid Provider" - my first experience with Jane Mead's wrting - incorporated as an element in this book.

Listen for a second to a few lines from "The World" -

"... the grasshoppers are anonymous

to the anonymous, the birds

*

are always at attendance.

There comes a moment

when you see as the crow sees:

*

the body as slaughterhouse,

as beggar - in the long grass, kneeling."

This is poetry to read when you have come to the point where you are ready to change your image of what poetry could be. "House of Poured-Out Waters", like "The Lord and the General Din of the World", like "Baltics", will determine how you will read poetry in the future.

One of the first things you note is that Philip Levine's introductory note seems to be at a loss for words. It's understandable once you start reading. The pieces in this book are what poetry strives to be and usually falls short of. Mead's command of the language does not come across as effortless, rather it comes across as a true command, sure in its phrasing, confident in its images. It creates a deep and lasting resonance in the reader, calling out more of the truth about ourselves and our relation to the world than we are usually comfortable with.

This book changed the way I read poetry in much the same way as reading the Charters translation of "Baltics" did. It established for me a new reference point, a new vision of what is possible.