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“I Am Not Sentimental” looks at poems by Elizabeth Bishop, Adam Zagajewski, Robert Frost, Gregory Corso, and Rachel Wetzsteon, all of which have in common the speaker’s grappling with diametrically opposed ideas (ways of living, ways of seeing.) Though the speakers make divergent choices, in every case the poem is able to sincerely and substantively engage both sides of a dichotomy, before settling on a conclusive course of action or perception. This openness to paradox and/or counter-argument heightens the poems' poignancy, immediacy, and intellectual liveliness, creating the sense that in every case the poet is thinking in real time and as surprised by the outcome as the reader. “Earth Science” is a collection of poems that explores the ways in which life surprises us by disrupting simple categories: stranger and neighbor, lover and enemy, luck and loss.