Micah Towery's poems are little miracles of lyric intelligence pitched against a skeptic's need for faith: faith in God, faith in other people, faith in love, and faith that daily life means more than its repetitions and its downward spiral toward death. His devotion to the clear expression of such mixed emotions is reflected in how these poems are by turns satiric, tender, self-deprecating, and vulnerable. And as if to match this wide range of tone, his idiom is among the most varied and surprising of any writer of his generation: he moves from high style to plain style with the assurance of...