Short Flights

Meredith Nicholson's "Short Flights" gathers poems written in the quiet intensity of the early 1890s, when poets still believed a perfectly turned phrase could hold the weight of human feeling. These are verses that move at the pace of contemplation: love observed through afternoon light, nature rendered with scientific tenderness, and the small existential questions that haunt solitary walks. Nicholson writes in the romantic tradition, but with an American clarity that prevents sentimentality from curdling into affectation. The collection offers brief escapes, each poem a small aeronautic leap above the ordinary, returning the reader to earth with something luminous caught in hand. For readers who have grown weary of poetry that performs its difficulty, these flights offer something rarer: the pleasure of being moved by simplicity masterfully achieved.