Some lives

In Leeanne Quinn's poetry, both her way of seeing and her way of saying not only draw in the reader but open up and expand that reader's experience. 'BeforeYou' (2012), Quinn's impressive first collection, included poems that explored relationships, loss, art, urban life and a sequence prompted by Elizabeth Bishop's letters. Her second is even more assured and its modest title belies its range and power. Those lives, especially those of dissident, courageous activists Osip and Nadezha Mandelstam, Marina Tsvetaeva, Anna Akhmatova, Jakob van Hoddis, are given voice and presence in this compelling collection, in poems that are challenging, allusive, and engagingly mysterious.