er love poems in Mass for Shut-Ins that you might read them to your significant other and hope for success--a veritable Neruda of Nebraska. In 'Skin, ' the speaker is 'a soft / ravening / hominid torched / by rosewater/ & coconut oil.' The poems are no less fervent toward the old sod, beautifully evoking the contemporary Midwest. He feels 'the jolt of coal trains / through the gut of steaming America.' A splendid debut."--Terese Svoboda, author of Professor Harriman's Steam Air-Ship