""Help Me, Information" is propelled by the speed and motion of the poems that define earlier acclaimed books by David Kirby, poems which move the way the mind does on a good day, puddle-jumping from one topic to another and then coming in for a nice soft landing. The poem might bounce once or twice on the tarmac, but the pilot promised he would get you to the terminal safely, and he does. Colloquial in tone, balancing narrative breadth with masterfully precise details, Kirby's poems traverse subjects and emotions with great insight and skill. "Help Me, Information" reveals the amplitude of his imagination and mercurial voice reaching new heights in breadth of gesture, seriousness of subtext, and the resourcefulness of his comic instincts, as his poems display a voracious curiosity about history, science, literature, and popular culture. Yet here he also reinvents himself with poems that recall the directness of Jack Gilbert, the sweep of Allen Ginsberg, and the introspection of Frank O'Hara"--
