3 Review(s)

Robert Michael Pyle's fifth full-length compilation, The Last Man in Willapa, contains more than seventy-five poems, most of which are entirely new since his previous collection (The Tidewater Reach, 2018). Within these pages, readers can find people, creatures, places, and stochastic happenings both large and small. Pyle's longtime followers will recognize poems that are lyrical, story-based, and descriptive, usually featuring species, selves, and lifeways other than his own, but derived from his personal experience. Pyle writes from the details of the real, physical world, where nothing is beneath notice. A few of the book's sections orbit specific subjects. "The Cuba Poems" came from a week in Havana with other writers, Cuban and American, and Pyle's run-ins with the nature of the place. "The Children of the Night" began with a dream that drew forth memories from childhood with his brother and others. "From the River" pays homage to the Pacific Northwest where he lives and writes. Often witty and with an eye to the upside in spite of the facts, Pyle's are poems in which every story paints a picture, grace is seldom withheld, and love is never far behind.