Walter Schindler's book of poems, "The Napoleon House," has pleased me for nearly a decade now. While I wouldn't call Schindler's poems revolutionary or staggeringly original, I would call them friendly, warm, touching, and real. Each poem drips with the feeling that Schindler poured his life into each one, driving himself to find the absolutely right image, mood, and word. This is exactly the kind of poetry utterly missing from the academic poets, who see this sort of heart-on-the-sleeve virtuosity as hopelessly outdated. This attitude is directly analagous to those who believe that sculpture since August Rodin means anything (which, in my humble opinion, it doesn't: obscurity and a refusal to even attempt to communicate with one's society have never made for good art: even T.S. Eliot believed he was speaking to the world, and not his own private circle.) Schindler is attempting to make each poem matter, to make each poem memorable, and to strike the lightning from the heavens with each attempt. He doesn't fully succeed with each try, but who does? Even Yeats and Whitman have their dogs. I especially love the sense of dialogue Schindler has with his readers: at one point, in a little comic interlude, he tells us to go away, find somebody to make love, and to live poetry rather than read it. All in all, a charming, unpretentious book that should be far better known than it is.