Michael Krüger is one of the finest poets of our time. His poems, whether introspective or paying attention to what goes on in the world, remind us that since its beginnings, lyric poetry has been one of the ways we invent and get to know ourselves and take stock of our historical predicament. One of Krüger’s translators calls his poetry “an anatomy of modern German melancholy,” which sounds about right, until one recalls how much joy and love of life there is also to be found in his poems. “All must be done anew, all said anew,” he says in a poem, and shows us again and again in this marvelous new collection of his best poems that it can be done. —Charles Simic