A SIMPLE HUMAN MOTION Poems by Jeff Worley Larkspur Press $24 hardback 43pp. After reading Jeff Worley's new collection of poetry, A Simple Human Motion, I can never look at an owl's eyes again without thinking of his startling simile: "like thick slices of pineapple" taken from his poem, On My Way to the Compost Bin; nor can I watch a fat robin without the instinctive return of his lines: russet chest pooching out like a bloated wineskin. And this robin is so fat the poet extends the comparison in Tableau to an obese actor: It's an Orson Welles robin, sucking down a convenient clump of berries. Not only is the writing clearly radiant, but the book itself, handset and handbound, accentuates the imagistic words printed on ivory vellum by Larkspur, a small but exemplar Kentucky press. Even in his earlier collection, The Only Time There Is, Worley revealed the ability to do what all poets try -- to see things new, and to see them in language that is accurate, memorable and luminous. Like the dazzling Loren Eisley, that "scientist with a soul," he possesses that rare facility to pour the elaborate complexities of the natural world into the metaphorical world of poetry. Worley also makes his living as a science writer and is the editor of Odyssey, the University of Kentucky research magazine. It is his astute knowledge, ironic grasp and penetrating observations of nature that set up the metaphors for his poems. In For My Brother Terrified of Wasps, Worley blends these skills: Backyard barbecue, stung. Dozing in a lawnchair stung, the venom solidifying his irrational fear and dissolving red blood cell like breath in seawater. Further, in What the Earth Gives Up, he explains incisively the annoying nature of starlings: The common starling (Sturnus vulgaris) doesn't mean to irk us awake. It means only to tell us, I'm making the most of my jagged voice. It's nearly light. Determined to delay endings, to outstay the biting blackflies, he reflects on his own mortality in Reading Poetry at Dusk: The night begins its quiet crescendo of falling; the stars announce themselves. And I think, without remorse or desperation, of my tombstone rising into some airy future above what's become of me. As common as a thumb, a bookmark. Jeff Worley's writing is far, far from common.

Gail Ghai teaches English as a second language and is a writing teacher-consultant for the Writing Project at the University of Pittsburgh. Ms. Ghai also serves as a Poet-in-Residence for the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts and Poet-in-Person for the International Poetry Forum. Her poems, translations and reviews have appeared in Epiphany, Icarus, The Malahat Review, The New Quarterly, Poetic Justice, Shenadoah and The Woman's Review of Books. She is the author of three chapbooks of poetry. Gail resides in Wexford, PA and receives correspondence at GailGhai@aol.com

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