Robert Haas entices you to consider colors behind words and actions behind beliefs in Time and Materials (Ecco/ Harper Collins 2007).

Mired in the holiday season, many Americans are out getting and spending – passing time with fancy trinkets and forced holiday cheer. In Time and Materials, former U.S. Poet Laureate Robert Hass impels readers to slow down in order to appreciate natural splendor.

This handsome book of poetry is a great way to subvert stencil-wielders and coerce people to prepare for a new year by reckoning with lessons learned in the past.

Time and Materials is the literary equivalent of dismantling an inherited pocket watch to figure out how the machine works – without losing any vital wheels or springs. Only Haas’ words are not so delicate.

Although this is Haas’ first book in a decade, it does not feel forced or brooded over. Czeslaw Milosz figures largely into this collection, but Haas also writes about self-discovery without isolating readers from disparate upbringings.

For readers who need to

"stand outside
 The horizontal rush of it, for a moment
 To have the sensation of standing outside
 The greenish rush of it"

pick up this book.