Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars (Inland Seas)

Poetry. Jim Daniels' latest collection bears witness to a life boat mis- and well-spent; to the family, remembered and new; to the melancholy pull of drugs and casual sex; to growing up; and to the only tenable way of growing old, which is to embrace every small joy even as one laments its brevity. Indeed, Night with Drive-By Shooting Stars rages not against the dying of light but the dying fall itself-against poetic and existential complacency. "Louder, kids," says Daniels in the beautiful "Cold Seed": "daddy's dying."