Poetry. OBSESSIONAL, is remarkable for yoking an engaging Elizabethan literary detective story to a personal narrative about life as a grad school poet. Even more impressive than this set-up actually succeeding is the way McIntosh is able to tie compassion to dagger-thrust humor. If that's what 'obsessional' poetry is--personal narrative of neurosis that is aware a world exists outside the poet's gut, and is not afraid to tell a joke--maybe it will catch on among those still in the stranglehold of the confessional. --Brian Clementst
