Marianne Boruch is one of America's finest contemporary poets, and as she demonstrates in Poetry's Old Air, she is also a marvelous essayist. Weaving together close readings, biographical detail, and personal reflections, Boruch meditates on a universal fascination: how a poem comes to exist.
A variety of imaginative approaches sets the essays apart from strictly academic poetry criticism. Boruch's ear for metaphor and attention to everyday...