How the Light is Spent is a meditation on love and loss, on time and tempo. From the Drumheller Badlands to Istanbul, Turkey and back to Canada, Gail Sidonie Sobat scores the light and the shadow of human relationships, composing an etude of how best to mark our allotted time. The first section, "Badlands," constructs a narrative of a young couple in love who are eventually divided by war and tragedy, their story so poignant it never quite leaves the remaining pages. The middle collection of poems, entitled "Sailing to Byzantium," sweeps readers across the ocean and drops them squarely into...