Weighing Light Poems

The fifth winner of the annual New Criterion Poetry Prize. From the glinting scales in a painting by Vermeer to the white lines that disappear beneath a headlight's beam, Mr. Brock's poems measure out the often elusive weights and distances of the known world, confronting the unruly powers that threaten his burnished surfaces. Once read, his keen perceptions--all the more striking for the expertly cadenced music of his language and his supple use of poetic form--will be long remembered.