The Inexhaustible Before

Bob Pfeiffer’s second poetry collection dares us to be “good to one another,” to be “serious about experience,” and “to enjoy / the smallest fragments of life.” It’s a book about fatherhood, citizenship, and—first and foremost—love. At turns funny, at turns enraged by injustice, these clear-eyed and kindhearted poems achieve hopefulness without falling into naivety. Indeed, they recognize that “There is the world we have, / and the world we want,” and that a huge gulf exists between the two. Poe