Joshua McKinney's debut collection of poetry, "Saunter," shows immense devotion to and passion for language in all its aspects. He intensely attends to words and delights in the play of accidental connections and complications. Such amusement and playfulness with oppositions is evidenced in lines like: "an opening / a cello scales / some stairs. Risen, / a thought falls." McKinney's awareness of the complex resonance of literary history and current issues of language comes through in his dedication to making the appearance of language, not just its sound or its relative meaning, an integral...