No one would accuse Peter Davison of failing to address large themes. Barn Fever is Davison's strongest book to date; in conjunction with it his previous collection, A Voice in the Mountain, reads like a loquacious staging area in which momentum builds for this vibrant array of poems, at once more passionate and more knowing than earlier sequences. Writing outside the clamors of poetryland, in urbane "exile and cunning," Davison is a poet with a fortunate gift. He takes himself seriously and is afraid of nothing, not even Meaning—whether found in a barnyard or at a dinner-party, the span of occasions for these poems. Davison has long been pegged either as a "nature poet" or as a mere disciple of his master, Frost; Barn Fever successfully liberates him (if he ever knew the shackles) from these silly and (for many) opprobrious labels. In a host of poems...