This Milwaukee poetry collection is a tribute to the original Gathering of the Waters, an ’80s-era anthology from a time just before the city caught the global cosmopolitan wave. Return gathers the work of 47 local poets in a well-produced paperback. Christina Zawadiwsky, represented in the ’80s Gathering, opens the new book with a trio of prose poems. A few others, such as Harvey Taylor and Antler, have been familiar in town for years, but most of the words come from newer generations. No one style dominates the anthology, and the tone ranges from starkly beautiful or philosophical to whimsical. If there is a collective message, it’s that creativity thrives in Milwaukee. As contributor Keith Gaustad puts it: “Don’t worry if you don’t understand what the poems mean / Very few books of poetry are meant to be understood.”
