In his book of poetry, The Cold Panes of Surfaces (Nightwood), Chris Banks takes the incidental moments of our lives and raises them, with stunningly precise language, to the level of the divine. In lines like these: “Today, field crickets with hum-bucking bones/recite whole tribal histories and mythologies/To the tune of an undiagnosed sadness,” Banks demonstrates his unique skill as he crafts his poetry with the precision of a fine tailor. Although the poems in this volume tackle much traditional poetic territory—coming of age, travel in foreign lands, falling in love—the imagery is always fresh and revelatory, as if Banks were taking us by the hand, pointing to the world around us and saying, “Here is beauty. Here it is again. And here.”