Charles Harper Webb is celebrated for his use of humor; yet even his
funniest poems rise, as the best comedy must, out of deep human drives,
sorrows, and needs. Powerful immersions in what it means to be human,
these poems explore the spectrum of emotions from love to hate,
tenderness to brutality. They can be withering and vulnerable in the
same breath. Models of clarity and vividness, they are mysterious when
they need to be, ranging from lyric to narrative, from realism to wild
surreal flights, powered by a fierce, compassionate intelligence.
Metaphors of startling aptness and originality, a voice at once
endearing and provocative, high musicality, propulsive energy, wild
imaginative leaps, as well as mastery of diction from lyricism to
street-speak, create a reading experience of the first order. Uniformly
fun to read, these poems go down easy, but pack a wallop. As Robert
Frost said poetry should do, What Things Are Made Of "begins in
delight and ends in wisdom."