“What finer thing is there than to pour out/your thoughts and have someone drink/of your meaning?” proclaims Lynn Levin, Drexel University adjunct associate professor in the Department of English and Philosophy, thoughtfully and accurately in “I Wanted to Tell You,” one of many enjoyable poems in her latest poetry collection, Fair Creatures of an Hour. The collection — her third — was published by Loonfeather Press, as were her first two books: A Few Questions about Paradise (2000) and Imaginarium (2005).

Dividing her time between Drexel’s campus and our Ivy League neighbor, Levin is currently teaching a creative writing course at the University of Pennsylvania. Imaginarium was a finalist for ForeWord magazine’s 2005 Book of the Year Award, and Loonfeather Press has nominated Fair Creatures of an Hour for the Pulitzer Prize. Levin’s poems and translations have been published in numerous acclaimed literary magazines and Levin has been nominated for eight Pushcart Prizes and is a Bucks County, Pennsylvania Poet Laureate. With such prestigious accomplishments, I opened my copy of Fair Creatures of an Hour, a sunset-colored book showcasing a galloping clear toy horse, with high expectations. Delightedly, I was not disappointed.

Levin’s poetry collection is divided into four sections, with several noteworthy themes circulating throughout. Levin discusses longing and heartache, hope and desperation, nostalgia and friendship, philosophy and religion, and life experiences and reflections with appropriate amounts of humility, remorse, curiosity, and sage wisdom and perspective. She evokes a multitude of emotions from the reader through her endlessly clever use of imagery, language, and metaphor. Touches of wit and brilliant observations are interwoven throughout the collection, creating a truly memorable and innovative book.

Levin’s storytelling abilities and her remarkable talent for manipulating the English language are on display in “Little Red Telegram,” an epic five-page recollection of famous thoroughbred Smarty Jones, a local hero shadowed by a grim history but who had a hugely successful racing career; “Smarty Jones was a freak/and that was why everybody loved him,” Levin emphasizes repeatedly throughout the poem. If “Little Red Telegram” was merely a retelling of Smarty Jones’s career, it perhaps would be less memorable; however, Levin juxtaposes the tale of the colt with stories about a woman named Liz, “who was both meek and strangely strong,” whose unhappy marriage was temporarily alleviated by the rush of excitement Smarty Jones’s races caused.

The collection features several poems that read like horoscopes or psychic readings; they serve as miniature portraits of the poems’ title characters. Like Emily Dickinson’s famous definition poems, pieces such as “To Tiffany with a Stud in Her Tongue,” “Happy Birthday, Bernice,” and “Confidential to Ike, Technician at CVS Photo” are beautifully written, perceptive insights into a particular subject. The humorous poem “Paula, File Clerk, Student, Receptionist, Student, Childcare Worker,” and its clever response piece, “Mr. Schaeffer, President of Schaeffer Title and Abstract,” lead me to wish Levin would write a novel, further developing these interesting characters.

Some poems in the collection are less witty and more poignant: “Nuclear Scan of the Crab Nebula,” about Levin’s mother’s battle with breast cancer, is an emotional and heartening glimpse into a somewhat tumultuous mother-daughter relationship, and speaks of how tragic events can sometimes unite people in surprising and crucial ways.

Other standout pieces include “That Universe, That Big Balloon,” a poem which comments on the changing nature of relationships, and “The White Puzzle,” a beautifully executed poem which states simply that, “To love jigsaw puzzles, you have to love trouble/the mad messing of a picture, the slow steps back to art.” Levin puts words together in a way that feels much like a jigsaw puzzle-jumbled pieces, that, once arranged, come together in a way that feels natural, graceful, and perfectly fitting.

Levin looks at relationships in unique ways. In “Vinaigrette,” she compares the process of cooking, and the mixing of dissimilar foods, to relationships between men and women. Like oil and vinegar, some people cannot coexist: “What an irrational dressing/you are:/Taylor and Burton, Monroe and DiMaggio/your liquids mixing/only for a spell/until they remember/they are completely incompatible.” The creative comparisons between ingredients and relationships are insightful.

Lynn Levin’s collection features more than 40 richly crafted poems. I dog-eared many pages, circled endless passages, underlined numerous phrases, and put asterisks next to the titles of more than half of the poems; it would be impossible to pay tribute to each piece in the collection, although I wish I could.

On Oct. 15, 2009, Levin and fellow professor Miriam N. Kotzin held a poetry reading in the A.J. Drexel Picture Gallery, delighting the audience with samples from their latest collections. The luxurious room, which resembles a miniature museum, was packed with professors from the College of Arts of Sciences, along with many students who came to support Levin and Kotzin.

Dr. Abioseh Porter, English and Philosophy Department Head, opened the reading by quoting Toni Morrison, who once said, “If there’s a book you really want to read but it hasn’t been written yet, then you must write it.” Dr. Porter stated that both and Levin and Kotzin have created poetry that is engaging and memorable.

Levin read some of my favorite poems, including “Little Red Telegram,” “To Tiffany with a Stud in Her Tongue,” and “To Hair.” Her poems came to life when read aloud by the author herself; I found myself chuckling at witty phrases and references that I had not noticed the first time around. Levin read her work with ease, animation, and clarity. It was a joy to reconnect with these poems, weeks after I first read Fair Creatures of an Hour.

Julia Perch is a junior at Drexel University studying English. She is currently the editorial co-op student for the Drexel Publishing Group and the managing editor of DPG Online. She can be reached at pg@drexel.edu