I failed. I'll admit it. I sat down the other day and tried to break open new ground in the book review, to widen the form, and the attempt collapsed miserably. How, after all, do I explain to you the moment when I was at Applejack's drinking a morning pitcher of beer with a one dollar egg and cheese breakfast sandwich, reading Paul Ruffin's New and Selected Poems, and a weekend-warrior-fair-weather-yuppie psuedo-biker couple came in (the woman still had her nose taped up from a nose job), sat down at the bar, interrupted our peace and quiet and then mocked my reading in there? How…

I am not interested in going to a lily white heaven. I want greasefire and the boogie. I want nights to yawn into forever, dark bars and road lightning. I want Professor Longhair, endless cases of beer and a woman's waist curled up against mine. Always the groove. Until then, I won't ask for much. Just a few good nights and the chance to keep reading Jim Harrison's Songs of Unreason.

Songs of Unreason, Harrison's latest collection of poetry, is a wonderful defense of the possibilities of living. Far from the pop psychology, woe-is-me memoir,…