A conversation with the NYT critic on his popular close reads of poems. By Jonathan Farmer. April 13, ... I mean, Dante is writing about his girlfriend and his friends and enemies in Florence.

A: As I was writing this, one of my closest friends died, and so I started writing elegy poems to her. She was 39 when she died, and I was feeling devastated at her loss. I started writing to her ...

So goes one of many aphorisms, rapt statements and pointers toward the unknown in Kuusisto’s CLOSE ESCAPES (Copper Canyon, paperback, $17), which brings to mind the attractions of Nordic nights ...