After the magnificent swerve into epic narrative poetry of The Folding Cliffs, Merwin returns to something closer to his more normal style with this slim volume. The style and the length of these poems are more typical for Merwin. There are three longer poems here that kind of serve as the focal points of the book. I really loved two of them. Lament for the Makers is a beautiful piece where Merwin muses on the poets he himself loves; Suite in the Key of Forgetting is a melancholy exploration of memory and loss. The third long poem, Testimony, is an extremely autobiographical poem and I will admit that I didn’t like that one as much. It certainly felt too long. But, overall, this is yet another really strong book of poetry from Merwin. Not one of his absolute masterpieces, but it has moments of mastery and, overall, there’s nothing really wrong with it, outside of Testimony being a bit too drawn out. 3 ½ stars.
tl;dr – two magnificent long poems & one not-so-great overlong poem are rounded out with shorter, mostly excellent poems; not at the top of Merwin’s list, but a solid & often beautiful book. 3 ½ stars.