Stephen Burt's Close Calls with Nonsense provokes readers into the elliptical worlds of Rae Armantrout, Paul Muldoon, C. D. Wright, and other contemporary poets whose complexities make them challenging, original, and, finally, readable. Burt's intelligence and enthusiasm introduce both tentative and longtime poetry readers to the rewards of reading new poetry. Invited to offer a "defense of poetry," Randall Jarrell complained fifty years ago that poetry doesn't need to be defended, it needs to be read. Since then, fewer and fewer Americans (at least in proportional terms) have read it. This essay will not, exactly, tackle that problem; it will, instead, tackle one of its sources, by helping you enjoy new poets' books. I write here for people who want to read more new poetry but somehow never get around to it; for people who enjoy Seamus Heaney or Elizabeth Bishop, and want to know what next; for people who enjoy John Ashbery or Anne Carson, but aren't sure why; and, especially, for people who read the half-column poems in glossy magazines and ask, "Is that all there is?" Book jacket.