Mass for Shut-Ins

"Todd Robinson has written such tender love poems in MASS FOR SHUT-INS that you might read them to your significant other and hope for success—a veritable Neruda of Nebraska. In ''Skin,'' the speaker is ''a soft / ravening / hominid torched / by rosewater/ & coconut oil.'' The poems are no less fervent toward the old sod, beautifully evoking the contemporary Midwest. He feels ''the jolt of coal trains / through the gut of steaming America.'' A splendid debut."—Therese Svoboda