Circumstances Beyond Our Control: Poems

Robert Phillips is a prominent member of America's neglected "transition generation" of poets-those born in the late 1930s and early 1940s. His work has been included in many anthologies and textbooks. He gathers for his seventh full-length collection his best poems of the past six years, from dramatic monologues to personal lyrics. While most are free-verse, there are also sonnets, a villanelle, a ballade, an abecedarian, found poems, prose poems, haiku, and clerihews.

Divided into three sections-"Fire and Obsession," "A Little Light Music," and "Rituals"-this new volume reveals Phillips's playfulness and good humor, his high intelligence, and his musicality.