J. J. Steinfeld brings both intellectual naughtiness and wry rigour to his seriously playful philosophical questioning in Somewhat Absurd, Somehow Existential—his seventh collection of poems. These are pieces that probe magic and mystery, faith and fancy, Heaven, immortality, God and metaphoric hope alongside death sentences and “Existential Texting,” in language that is unafraid of its own bounty and imaginative edge.

To enter into a Steinfeld poem is to enter into a world of the fabulist, of conundrums, magical sleight of hand, elegant allegories, and cautionary tales, sometimes dire, sometimes comedically ironic. But make no mistake: beneath this “dialogue with mystery” of this world and the otherworldly, there is an essentially humanistic voice searching for answers to the big questions against seemingly unfair odds—a commuter contemplates love and time on a bus ride; a woman opens the urn containing her husband’s ashes; an elderly man watches old sci-fi films in a seniors’ home and laughs because “they got it all wrong / not even close / those silly, silly, Earthlings.