I’m normally skeptical of a book of poetry containing multiple references to contemporary metaphysicists and epistemologists. Academic poets can be such stiff writers, getting stuck in a search for canonical purpose and intellectual weight. Their poems get 'workshopped' until they are systematically drained of all their energy and inspiration.
This is not the case with Kate Hall, whose finished poetry sounds much more like Wallace Stevens than GWF Hegel. Some lines from the last poem capture the feel of this book as a whole:
