BOTH AI and Gregory Orr were born in 1947. Aside from that they share little in common, except that they're both publishing their first books of poetry and both books are very good.

I FIRST came upon a style similar to Orr's while sitting in the waiting-room of a doctor's office. Appearing in the New Yorker was a single poem by Mark Strand called "The Room." It describes a place much like that waiting-room: antiseptic, empty, bereft of any outward emotion, full of silent anticipation. A sense of detachment in the short, simple lines emphasizes an underlying presence of death and sorrow. And Strand's dreamlike collection of everyday objects paradoxically works to produce a coherent poem. Orr's poetry used the same simplicity, the same etherial contrast of commonplace images amid stark, unencumbered language, but the effect is different, more diffuse.

Conveniently, Orr has also written a poem entitled "The Room." Since both poems are statements about poetry, the room being the poem, a comparison between the two can show how Orr departs from reality, and what makes that departure so attractive. As you "enter" Strand's "room," a strange one-sided dialogue ensues: he puts questions to you are thinking. While he recognizes his own place in the poem, he remains "at the back/of the room." The words themselves have to do the job of the poetry, to 'fit' the reader:

I am here. Can you see me?

I shall lay my words on the table

as if they were gloves,

as if nothing had happened.

In a mysterious way, something does happen. The idea of the poem as a room where the poet lingers but can never be fully seen sets just the right mood of alienation for its message. It's a simple statement, but what could not work well alone, comes off nicely here:

I know

if you close your eyes

you will know why

you are here;

that to stand in a space

is to forget time

that to forget time