I knew when I ordered The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell that it would be a departure from the poetry that I typically like to read like Emily Dickinson and Leonard Cohen. The cover on the book gives an impression of maybe the occult or some sort of horror theme, like I'm ten years old again and about to read a slightly more depressing version of "Scary Stories to Read in the Dark."And that impression turns out to largely be the case. The book carries mildly unsettling themes of death, darkness, and rotting flesh throughout. I can't say that it doesn't come as advertised.The writing and the imagery are both superb, though I'm just not sure that the subject matter is exactly my ball of wax.My favorite part of the book was the final poem. This is when the author began to tackle a subject more up my alley:"Lastnessis brightness. It is the brightnessgathered up of all that went before. It lasts.And when it does endthere is nothing, nothingleft..."I interpreted this part of the final poem to mean that we get the option to transcend this finite life we live by how we live it ("It lasts"), which is something I believe in very much. The author may (and probably does) have a very different idea in mind, but that's what I see.I went back and forth between giving a three or a four star rating here because like I said, all of the gloom and doom is a bit of a bummer for my tastes, but I can't fault the author for that. I bought it knowing that was what it would be about. But also I liked the flash of brilliance in the final poem so much that I think he's earned the four stars.