poem may exhibit lyric intensity, relate narrative content, and call upon the past, present, and future. Readers who have appreciated Gallagher’s previous works will probably applaud her continued pairing of opposites such as war and peace, illness and health, life and afterlife. In a similar vein, she complements her frequently conversational phrasing with a generous number of striking expressions and images.

The words of a Buddhist nun, “to be neither separated from words nor/ obstructed by words,” introduce the first section of the work. This concept is fully present in the first poem, “My Unopened Life,” in which the existence of a parallel life is proposed. This idea remains dominant throughout the poem, even though the words themselves present a series of novel images. The life in question is originally that of the poet, but later in the poem it also belongs to an unknown suicide, “he.” As the poem begins, the life that is unopened lies “to the right of my plate/ like a spoon squiring a knife.” Although the spoon is round and small in stature, it playfully “escorts” the knife, assuming a dominant role in the poem.

The eating utensils wait patiently for either soup or for the “short destiny/ of dessert at the eternal picnic” that will take place “near the mouth of the sea” on a cloth spread under the “shadowy, gnarled penumbra” of a madrona tree. A penumbra is normally the outer ring of light surrounding a sunspot or the outer and lighter part of the shadow created by an eclipse. From this area of “relative” light the poem moves in the next stanza toward darkness: a cat feeding upon a captive bird, the bird “with its/ belly full of worm,” the worm already a denizen of darkness. Yet the worm never questions the overwhelming darkness of its existence.

In the next stanza of “My Unopened Life,” the bowl of the spoon collects images from around the room and from the mouth it serves, the mouth a kind of cave from which an unspecified “we” can see the setting of the suicide’s house and develop an appreciation for the “delicious/ universe of his intention.” The simple act of eating with a spoon has been transformed into a psychic journey.

A sense of the intent of the suicide in stanza 4 prefigures the conclusion of the poem: “So are we each lit briefly by engulfments/ of space,” light coming as the “worm in the beak of/ the bird” yields to “sudden corridors/ of light-into-light.” Readers will wonder why this light appears where it does and whether such a light will also appear at their deaths.

Two quotations introduce section 4 of the collection. They pair a variation of a line by the Zen master Hakuin, “Listen: a thrush at evening serenading the rain,” and the closing thoughts from Dear Ghosts, “And I don’t know why we are together, dear ghosts,/ or why we have to part. Only that it is precious/ and that I love this run-down subject.” The presence of these ghosts is key to “Apparition,” which provides an example of the poet’s fidelity to familial experiences. The poem narrates a tale Gallagher heard frequently from her uncle. As a young man, he had been visited by the ghost of his brother, the specter appearing when he was carrying water home from a spring. As a youth listening to her uncle’s detailed account of the incident, Gallagher could never bring herself to acknowledge the possible truth of the story. She proposes that her silence may have validated their relationship even more effectively than any comment would have and that such silences may also support belief in the spectral dimension.

“Apparition” is followed by a shorter poem, “Unspoken,” in which the heart is termed a “leaky bucket,” a silent “one that doesn’t speak at all.” The heart only stands “next to/ speaking.” By placing these two poems side by side, Gallagher intensifies the impact of both. Perhaps this placement echoes the position of the thrush’s song as it serenades the evening rain in the quotation from Hakuin.

Section 5 of Gallagher’s collection also begins with a reference to the role of words, as an editor struggling to find mid-nineteenth century poetry by Buddhist nuns asks, “Could it be that they taught solely through their spiritual/ presence, rather than through words?” A similar concept is embodied in “Moon’s Rainbow Body,” in which the moon first appears as part of a painting. Through contemplation, the poet suddenly enters the moon, her earthly existence disappears, and she is “so gone the word gone/ can’t find a mouth/ to say it.”

Included in the same section of the book, “Cairo Moon” is a good example of a work inspired by travel. The poem is set in Cairo, Egypt, where Gallagher is escorted by an efficient and personable driver, Ali, who also serves as a guide and bodyguard. He takes the poet to the pyramids, introduces her to his family, and gives her a nickname, “Pasha,” a Persian title once used in areas of Turkish rule to designate an important official. The poet is renewed by inhaling the air inside a pyramid, and she wonders whether ancient traces from the workers’ hands may have entered into her and given her an eternal role. At the close of the poem, the transformed “Pasha” walks through the city as a reanimation of the sleeping pharaohs.

Although tragedy is central to Dear Ghosts, Gallagher uses grief as a means to recovery. Her poems frequently conclude with animated and courageous declarationsendings that are particularly noticeable when pertaining to illness, death, and political oppression. One such poem, “The Violence of Unseen Forms,” begins with an epigram from Ranier Maria Rilke expressing his desire “to feel/ the hand within me that throws larks so high into the sky.” When Gallagher accepts her role as a haven for the ghost of a dying person, she discovers an interior “deeper hand” that enables her to “learn to throw larks/ for sheer pleasure,” an activity that releases her from grief.

In “Weather Report” Gallagher describes the way Romanian writers living under the dictatorial rule of Nicolae Ceauescu could express themselves honestly but safely. In a society lacking adequate fuel for heating homes, they signified their political position with references to “cold.” Gallagher depicts one such writer as wearing gloves while working, an image that causes her to exclaim, “I think I’ll take off my gloves./ It’s freezing in here./ There’s a glacier pressing on my heart.” Thus she expresses her outrage at the situation suffered by a fellow writer, proposing to remove her gloves and, if necessary, fight oppression with bare fists.

Long recognized for her sweeping style, Gallagher moves swiftly from subject to subject, connecting personal, national, international, and cosmic circumstances. Although some readers may find such an approach undisciplined, others will enjoy this leveling technique, as it reveals unsuspected relationships among daily events, traumatic memories, and politically induced inequities. In a Buddhist walking meditation, several climbers strung out along a mountain trail appear as one being with many legs. A rush of wind represents an answer to prayer at the gravesite of Raymond Carver. The dementia of a dying parent provides an opportunity for treasuring memories and African violets. A fallen drop of oil becomes a painting, the painter and the poet reveling in an awe-filled appreciation of beauty. In Dear Ghosts, Gallagher generously invites readers to share her innermost thoughts on an adventure confirming the value of living an incandescent life.