Thomas Reiter, in his engaging previous volume Crossovers, writes about westward migration, the Great Prairie, railroads, wilderness, flora and fauna, the lives of homesteaders and explorers. Pearly Everlasting extends his original territory and is a good example of the Keatsian assertion that the "poetry of the earth is never dead." Reiter is a brilliant observer of the wide outdoors. His language and attention are sharply honed and reflect the mysteries of prairie flowers, river meanders, Caribbean islands, ice fishing, Arawak caves, and other natural scenes that never fail to compel our interest. His book clearly demonstrates that in the struggle between culture and nature for dominance of the American imagination, nature has not been defeated. In fact, man-made ruins reveal themselves in many of these poems and have been largely reclaimed by the flowering, enduring earth.

The larger pattern of his new book is beautifully and quickly established, juxtaposing historical poems about Spanish explorers with gold fever in the Caribbean and homesteaders with land fever in the American west. But the title poem is first in the collection and shows us the "pearly everlasting" with "each flower head a cluster / of tiny full moons," a flower that, dried, makes a commanding centerpiece which "will not change all winter." ...