But I digress …

Had Homer been a fan of puns and digressions—nay, had he the attention span of a golden retriever—his epics might have resembled the wordplay and humor lavished epically on the mundane by Davis poet Dorine Jennette. In “Narrative,” which is either a truly postmodern take on storytelling or the longest digression ever written, a poem about an allergy to bees takes the same sort of looping route the bees themselves take; Jennette’s work is surely as hard as theirs, and like a hymenopteran, she makes it look effortless. But she is compelled to play; even “Interview With the Rescue Crew,” which invokes a rather straightforward premise, has its sideways approach: “On a scale of one to five? I’m a half-of-me hanging out / of a flying saucer with a grin kind of woman. / I’m fresh-sprung from the groin vault, / and ready to pertain.” These are rich and funny poems, worth your time.