Galway Kinnell's twelfth collection of poems, Imperfect Thirst, is powerful and thrilling, beautifully crafted and astonishingly candid. In it, Kinnell approaches elemental subjects with a remarkable balance of good nature and holy dread. It includes re-visions of moments of childhood and youth; reflections on the relationship between humans and the other creatures; poems bearing on music, language, sex, mortality; five poems based on the form of the Persian ghazal; love poems; and a tender evocation of a daughter taking care of her old father. Five longer poems close the book: a meditation...