Dancing in Eurynome's Shoes

In James Mele's Dancing in Eurynome's Shoes one finds poems of place, character, climate, and creatures. I love the maturity of these poems and how learned they are: no fretting, no self-indulgence, no flourishes for bravado's sake, but an ever-returning consideration of the major questions, a passion for the telling detail, a chiseling skill at figuration of all sorts. In keeping with Eurynome's being the mother of three graces whose qualities exemplify splendor, festivity, and rejoicing, this poet enacts his title: in the dispensations of his gaze; in his gracious, pacific, and capacious world view; in the musicality of his lines. Mele's poems distill a lifetime of thinking about how words can go beyond indicating and toward embodying. It's this distillation, and the skill he's acquired, that makes Dancing in Eurynome's Shoes a rare collection: not just the poems of a dozen seasons, but of an entire lifetime.