For nearly 50 years, Robert Hass has been regaling us with poems that are lyrical yet honest, creative but thought-provoking, winning him the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award along the way. Returning after a decade-long sabbatical from poetry, the former Poet Laureate is clearly taking stock of a long life, fully lived. Among the standouts here are the suites "Patches of Snow in July" and "The Creech Notebook"—which even contains two poems translated from the Anglo-Saxon—as well as "Stanzas for a Sierra Morning," "Jersey Train," and "Smoking in Heaven." Here too are Hass's homages to Pablo Neruda and John Muir, plus evocations of Los Angeles, Sewanee, and the Okefenokee.