One of the most urbane poets writing, [Hollander's] mercurial mind sparkles with the iridescence of an opal. In the notes to [Blue Wine], he engagingly explains the genesis of his title poem thus: "I visited Saul Steinberg one afternoon and found that he had pasted some mock (or rather visionary) wine labels on bottles, which were then filled with a substance I could not identify. This poem is an attempt to make sense of what was apparently in them." The 11 meditations on the subject attack the puzzle from a bewildering variety of angles…. In the end, Hollander decides that his "Blue wine in bold bottles" is for the poet to "take home with him / in the clear cup of his own eye, to see what he will see."

The poems that follow are seldom so full of fey humor. Melancholy plays a continuo throughout them. The themes are...