Next Ancient World, The

What Jennifer Michael Hecht manages to accomplish, in poems that demonstrate a mastery of craft and a uniquely voiced understanding buoyed with an air of brilliance, is astonishing. Her introduction explains - in her endlessly appealing half-outrageous, half-conspiratorial voice - her purpose: to offer a guidebook for those that come after. We are the next ancient world, and Hecht chronicles our motivations, our interactions, our dreams and half-remembered thoughts with wit, aching romance and savvy intuition.Out of the quotidian, Hecht manufactures something mythic. It is an unparalleled view that confers on the human condition an aspect of the eternal, that locates the momentous in every moment. In short, one cannot read one of her poems without an equal measure of relish and envy.The Next Ancient World offers a unique voice and vision, informed with full measures of play, wisdom, and the sheer joy of invention.