Capricorn in Flux

Throughout Capricorn in Flux, Glaser’s eleventh book of poetry, we hear that same voice, vivid and precise and crackling with verve and wit. To borrow a line from Robert Lowell, he is still “free-lancing out along the razor’s edge.” But this time, the sprightliness is shadowed by a darker perspective. Now in his early eighties, Glaser takes into account the diminishments and indignities of late age. Though he calls himself “Laureate of the bent vernacular and the slippery joke,” he also cannot help but feel the encroachments of the concluding years: “The nervous pressure of what’s next.” Harboring what comforts are left—the arts, a new love, the cycle of the seasons-Glaser finds the resilience he needs as everything else fades away, that last flare of grace and energy, ever restless and exuberant: “The mind buried alive in the body.”