JUST AROUND THE CORNER

Sentimental but never corny, Stevenson offers more sweet kernels of verbal and visual poetry, celebrating the everyday world of cookies, ice cream, and old shoes, a seaside tire exposed at low tide, “growing its own seaweed and barnacles,” a partly demolished house, a closed-down diner, images evoked by a clutter of objects on a kitchen windowsill. Or, he wonders, what do umbrellas think of the world (“Every time they go outside, it’s raining.”); who lives in that rickety old house with the fold-down dock; what would it feel like to jump barefoot into a box of jelly doughnuts? As beguiling for its pleasant unpredictability of topic and errant play of colors and typography as for its splashy, sketchy, perfect illustrations, this silky gathering is an irresistible invitation to harvest library shelves for his four previous collections. Time spent stalking this poet is never frittered away. (Poetry. 6-9)