Poetry. Winner of the 1991 American Book Award and the Bay Area Book Reviewers Award. Selected by Denise Levertov for the National Poetry Series this generally strong first collection often set in the San Francisco Bay Area or in the wilderness showcases Centolellas gift for finding wonder in the quotidian for recovering the takenforgranted. In Task the poet writes Its not a savior the world needs but a savoring spirit a way to relish whats already begun to vanish and his best work celebrates the beauty evanescence and inevitable grief of mortal life. An elegy for his Lebanese grandmother Sito is especially moving as is Ossi dei morti bones of the dead about the Italian sweet so named Its dark and bittersweet this chocolate marrow this brief time people call a life. We bite into it hard. We do this together. A local cure for sorrow. At their least interesting the poems suffer from pedestrianism and an abrupt gunshot stylee.g. in The Garden The closer to terra firma one is the more firma one feels. After a long hike I stink therefore I amPublishers Weekly.