Home is provisional, as Gunvaldsen Klaassen shows in her third collection. We’re all making do with what we’ve got and rigging up what’s on hand, only to tear it all down and start over. The poet and her family rove to and from campsites, hospital sites and construction sites. Each place generates a kind of lyrical list of sensations, repetitions and resolutions. Listing text line the page, the tipping point always near. For some readers, who need more stability or order, the work will simply collapse in a heap. But, like the other two nominees for this year’s Atlantic Poetry Prize, and like poets in general, Gunvaldsen Klaassen’s giving it a go.
This article appears in Apr 15-21, 2010.