Poetry. "This savvy, savage, and moving book of poems from Frederick Feirstein, a master formalist at the height of his powers, takes as its motto 'Teach us to be courageous and naïve.' Feirstein knows the human condition as only a seen-it-all psychotherapist can, and he uses his adroit rhymes to make his insights sing in DARK ENERGY, a series of gimlet-eyed and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny riffs on the material of fairy tales. From the witch's oven in Hansel and Gretel to the ovens of concentration camps, from Red Riding Hood to Freud, DARK ENERGY is replete with memorable aphorisms that make the transient nature of the world comprehensible. In these lucid, direct, thoroughly unsentimental poems from a wise man who is also a romantic, Feirstein offers a rich appreciation of what it means to be alive."--Molly Peacock