The Mirror Test

The delights of Dan Campion's poetry rest with perceptions closely rendered and the poetic amplitude each allows-a branch, a finch, a hand curled across the arm of a chair, ordinary or surprising scenes. Each image is an occasion for reflection, a beginning. There are a variety of forms used here, all exceptionally well-wrought, though most notably Campion has, without fuss, recovered the sonnet as it was used by the Romantics as a vehicle for taking the emotional and mythic weight of the immediate. The Mirror Test, explicitly a test of an animal's self-awareness, is also, momento mori, a way of testing for a faint breath on the glass, at once self- awareness, awareness itself and survival. -Michael Anania

The Mirror Test is every bit as reflective as its name suggests-and brilliantly so. In language both spare and richly precise, Dan Campion offers indelible views of animals, art and artifact, history, landscape, and more, while encouraging us to take a hard yet compassionate look at ourselves. In the title poem and many others, he also muses directly on what it means to see and be seen. Campion's use of poetic forms-sonnet, haiku, sestina-is masterful. His range of tone, from wry to wrenching, keeps the reader pleasantly off balance. Among many standouts in the book are "Jubilate Lupo," a political sendup of Christopher Smart, and several poems, including "Suffusion" and "Fedora," that provide a touching slant on bereavement. Reading The Mirror Test, you may well recall a famous looking- glass from another book; like Lewis Carroll, Campion serves up a world of fresh perspectives you'll be glad you climbed inside. -Melissa Balmain

Whether he writes of birds, paintings, photographs, fishermen or keychains, Dan Campion's poems are rendered in sparkling, visionary detail, coupled with a witty sense of form (many are rhymed sonnets). Yet, this remarkable precision is underscored with a central question: do our perceptions actually read the book of the world, or are we staring into a mirror, reflecting back our own desires for connection, beauty, significance and safety? "You don't belong" a blackbird tells him. But the menagerie he constructs-from the genetic materials of self, other and that tantalizing realm beyond both-invites us to join the poet in making meaning, whether the world's blank stare acknowledges our efforts or not. -Jerome Sala