Stephen Sandy's importance in contemporary poetry rests on his ability to wed an always engaging and controlled prosody to luminous insights about the environment and the nature of experience. Disparities such as those between what happens to an individual and the way the experience affects his feeling, or between the incompatible ideals of Western and oriental culture, are the kinds of subjects Sandy explores in his work. In "Letter from Stony Creek," from Man in the Open Air (1988), he expresses his conviction that

Experience itself is a cul de sac.
Depths in the rock beckon. Lichens peel, and you
See in. The light on the water trembles, rises.

Characteristically, Sandy's poems investigate what he calls in the title poem of Thanksgiving Over the Water (1992) "ordinary experiences on a higher plane." Despite the delicacy of his insights and his intriguingly subtle perspectives, his work has not yet attracted widespread...