Michael S. Harper turned forty last year, and Images of Kin marks the occasion with fourteen new poems and a generous selection of earlier work…. Harper's [work] is this-worldly: it is full of people and places, called by their names. Not that subject matter in itself makes poetry—but it helps to have something to write about as well as a way of writing. Harper's language, at a time when most poetry tries to sound quiet and simple, is ornate, rich in unabashed sound effects, active (sometimes hyperactive) verbs, and convoluted sentences stretched over a dozen lines. His style has weaknesses as well as strengths, but it is distinctive, immediately recognizable….

Harper, as a black poet, draws upon black history, literature, and myth, but he has a wider curiosity that usually prevents him from turning black experience into melodrama…. Alongside poems of tribute to Richard Wright and Robert...