"But then 'Phlogiston: Jack McCarthy’s Universe' arrives. It’s a poem for his failed marriage to the mother of his daughters, built on the guiding metaphor of a long-debunked scientific element that was believed to have negative weight. By the second stanza I’m swooning as he makes his turn into the real topic— 'An element of negative weight:/ I love that explanation for/ the brilliance of its wrongness.' And of course, the book marches on, and just when I’m getting that woozy beauty sugar high, he delivers Fava Beans (& Sour Grapes) and straight off compares an acquired taste for poetry to Hannibel Lecter’s preference for human flesh, and…I actually cannot ruin this poem for you if you have not heard or read it by discussing it further. It’s just too perfect."