In the title poem of Into the New World Robert Schultz takes the reader on a walk around the World Trade Center site shortly after its destruction in response to this event the book ranges through the extremes of war and peace as well as backwards and forwards in time searching for shards out of which to build an enabling humane perspective Schultzs voice is distinctive yet he also has fashioned poems out of the nationshaping prose of Emerson Thoreau and William James Others are spoken in the voice of a Confederate surgeon an American GI and a Khmer Rouge photographer The poems treat wars past and current the vivid presences of nature love marriage and familyalways seeking moments of lyric insight Such moments occur as the speaker paddles across a shimmering lake walks at night next to the black reflective wall of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or courtesy of NASA gazes at the rocky plains of Mars Schultz writes mostly in free verse but he also adapts the music of forms ranging from the sonnet to the ghazal to Dantes terza rima In its variety and generosity Into the New World fashions poemsized meeting places that invite us to be less divided from one another less alone
