Country Album

At one moment, while reading James Capozzi’s manuscript, it occurred to me that he might actually be a Martian who learned to write by studying the incomplete works of John Donne, Raymond Queneau, and J. G. Ballard. But that only tells part of the story. He seems to have traveled to different countries—Spain, New Jersey, and Nevada—and recognized that all of them are foreign. Ghosts and ghostly voices rise up from the ground. Without falling into some obvious pattern or strategy, Capozzi puts words together that sound as if they have been connubial all along. The best poems worm their way into the reader’s brain, adding their own wires and synapses. —JOHN YAU