In the appropriately ambitious poem \u201cThe World,\u201d which names a cruise ship, the traditional intersection of the privilege of property ownership with that of viewership (\u201cAnd the eye\u2014 \/ the eye devours\u201d) allows access to all geographies, eliding difference and subsequently revealing a psychologically threatening lack of doubt: \u201cBut doubt exists only \/ where questions exist. The World satisfies its own conditions.\u201d The titular poem, \u201cThe Road In Is Not the Same Road Out,\u201d occupies the book\u2019s exact midpoint. It ends, \u201cIt appears it could go either way,\u201d suggesting an obvious fulcrum\u2014but this is not Frosts\u2019 \u201cThe Road Not Taken,\u201d where the poem\u2019s setting only provides occasion for a speaker\u2019s personal change. Rather, it is the land itself that changes: suburban sprawl and resource exploitation refuse to bend to any conventional lyric self-realization. Indeed lyric becomes a problematic category by the end of the book, in \u201cAgainst Lyric\u201d: \u201cOdd, that an excess \/ should produce such hollowness, tin bucket \/ racketing down the endless metal staircase within.\u201d<\/p>\n
As in her previous collections, Solie\u2019s language is unfailingly intelligent, embracing the objectively specific but with a penetrative subjective eye, which does not dispense with all facets of the lyric tradition, but here criticizes its particular heirloom quality: \u201cWheeled out on special occasions under \/ gold-plated anniversary clocks.\u201d In an earlier poem, lyric\u2019s introspection instead translates into social media and surveillance: \u201cCrowd studded with cameraphones\u201d; \u201cNow always we look upon ourselves\u201d; \u201cinfernal recurrence \/ without beginning or end.\u201d The long, beautiful poem \u201cBitumen\u201d presents inevitable environmental disaster as \u201cCollectible \/ photochrome postcards,\u201d while \u201cwe take selfies, post them, and can\u2019t undo it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHow difficult could it be \/\/ to stay here?\u201d the speaker asks of Sault Ste. Marie, but this could be a question of any town, house or memory in the book. \u201cTo stay\u201d\u2014in lyric\u2019s captured moment, Keats\u2019s famous urn\u2014in the end may not be difficult, but it is an inadequate response to the environmental and developmental challenges of Solie\u2019s moving world, which is, searingly and perceptively, our world: \u201cReflection\u2014there\u2019s no solace in it.\u201d<\/p>\n
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