In Now, Now, Jennifer Maier's second poetry collection, time is of the essence.

Moving with quantum ease through the porous membranes of the past, present, and future, the speaker wonders: What is each moment but the swirling confluence (or shy first meeting) of past and future--of what happened, and what-has-not-yet-happened but will?

Such phenomenological questions are sparked by ordinary events: a friend's passion for jigsaw puzzles; an imagined conversation with a neighbor's dog; a meditation on the uses of modern poetry. Here, in language at once elegant and agile,...