No one (least of all, I imagine, John Ciardi) would call "In Fact," his ninth collection of poetry, a great book or even a particularly important one. But it is damned enjoyable reading—a statement that can rarely be made about any new book of poetry. It gets in some good licks at evil and awakens our response to joy.

It is a day-by-day sort of book—often as familiar as the bulletin board in the suburban Co-op. None of the poems are particularly ambitious, as are those in Ciardi's other volumes. Some are outright jokes with only an overtone of larger meaning, such as "Vodka," which is "upwind from all other essences" because it doesn't stay on the breath, yet "Like poetry, vodka informs any thing with which it is diluted."…

Perhaps the greater number of the poems bear on suburbia directly, sometimes with joy, more often...