Glaciology

"e;Once I walked a thin rail through a glacier"e; begins "e;Shattered Bio,"e; the first poem in Glaciology, Jeffrey Skinner's latest collection of poetry. Filled with images that slide into one another in a dreamlike way, from the "e;squeak of pine trees in a forest"e; to "e;pinwheel, the baby's hand,"e; the poem provides a precise way of seeing how layers of tenderness and danger melt into one another, inhabiting the same world. At the center of the book, the eighteen-part title poem "e;Glaciology"e; takes readers to the core of misunderstandings as it juxtaposes the work of a glaciologist with fractured language, misread cues, and a literalness that defies conventional explanation. The lives of the glaciers are reported with a careful, scientific language that keeps readers emotionally at bay from the effects of their demise, and the speaker comments, "e;I consider language / mistreated these days, asked to explain itself / to justify at the same time it bears / meaning, to own up / to creation at the moment of use / only, and only that meaning."e; The third section of the book further explores the tensions of life and death in ways both whimsical-by focusing on a fly, a vintage clock, rabbits, and Poland, among other subjects-and deeply serious. In the long poem "e;Event Horizon,"e; Skinner takes readers into an accident and its aftermath, which brushes too close to death. By the end of the book, however, a new focus comes into view with the birth of a grandchild in "e;All Things Move toward Disorder Except the Newly Created."e;