Proverbs of Limbo: Poems

In a spillage of lively aperçus recalling the near-folksy sagacity of the traditional proverb, three-time U.S. poet laureate Pinsky investigates the betweenness connoted by limbo, balancing past and present, personal and historical while eschewing agenda for nuance. “Over and over again, the unexpected,” he muses, observing in the standout meditation “Forgiveness” that “The great / Fascist poet taught me free verse”; “Revisionary” reports that “Neanderthals…painted caves better than sapiens,…[and] history has found the Jews who fought for Hitler.” The poems ably reflect a worldview forged in the fire of Holocaust awareness and the rise of the civil rights movement. A portrait of baseball great Ralph Branca references his Calabrian immigrant father and Jewish mother, who lost relatives in the death camps, and a gentle moment with Jackie Robinson; Peter Seeger, Ralph Bunche, and Joan Baez also appear, as do members of Pinsky’s childhood Jewish Jersey community. He also moves forward to reflect acidly on foundations “looking for solutions to man-forged social ills / In means, markets and goods” and a jury proclaiming someone’s innocence: “he killed while scared.”