Night Scenes, by Lisa Jarnot

In NIGHT SCENES, the fourth book from best-selling poet Lisa Jarnot, we are returned to the "first melody" through mock archaisms, neologisms, rollicking rhymes, and childlike delight. Her circling lyrics sing the pleasure of naming itself, with pastoral dreams occasionally giving way to waking life in Brooklyn. Like William Blake's songs, NIGHT SCENES privileges wonder over reason in a triumph of the imagination: "Be jumpy / or unhinged / with joy / enlightened / fry cakes / Staten hoy."