Old Hat is Rob Winger’s third collection of poems, following his acclaimed first book, Muybridge’s Horse (2007), and his second, a collection of ghazals entitled The Chimney Stone (2010).

Winger’s new book is his first collection of miscellaneous poems, given that his earlier books focused, respectively, on an historical figure and a poetic form. Nevertheless, there are many things that tie the poems together and make the book something larger than the sum of its pieces: a tone of voice, a kind of gnomic utterance, and a persistent emphasis on the disconnection between language and the world “out there.”

This last tendency leads to odd images: “Sink-spoon newlyweds teethe / on one another’s factory labels”, or, “the Zen professor’s infernal coconut machines.” These lines leave the reader somewhat befuddled. There are recurring subjects as well, notably baseball and childhood. “Pascal’s Wager,” in which Winger tries to comfort his young son, is quite touching. I wish there were more poems like it in the book.

At his best, Winger can manage a couplet as lovely as this, from an otherwise obscure poem called “Mean Democrat, Nice Republican”: “The weeds in the dark yards, waiting for whackers, / grow their flowers anyhow.” Such moments make one regret the inclusion of adolescent parodies such as grumpy poems about critical theory (“The Mirror Stage”) or the pretensions of a poet introducing a poem at a public reading. This sort of poem is fun to write, but should not necessarily find its way into print.

From anthropomorphizing a marauding bear to elegizing an extraordinary baseball pitcher who died at 37, Winger’s range is great and his ear discriminating. I hope his next collection will contain fewer poems that leave one wondering, “What was that all about?”