Whether remembering the frightening possibility of abduction in the suburbs or sympathizing with the local florist as she glides through her shop, glorying in the banality of sales, Vancouver poet Billeh Nickerson forms his exacting observations into poems that are fragile receptacles of wordplay.

The Asthmatic Glassblower contains three sections, the first “Sometimes Gay Means Happy” having been previously published in 1997. This collection could probably have done without these earlier works, but at least one poem, “In the Shower,” anticipates the more seasoned poet of the collection’s second half. A provocative and genuine exploration of the gay love poem, the poem’s quick, easy metre contrasts with the dangerous act of lovemaking: “My lover feeds me mango/with his switchblade/close against my lips.”

In the following sections, “February,” a romantic reminiscence of one childhood month with 29 days, and “Persuading the Imaginary,” Nickerson’s talent shines. Poems of loss, identity, and discovery leap back and forth in time, stranding the reader in the present, where, like Nickerson, we struggle with our dependence on memory. These daring poems deliver deep emotional truths, often with sly humour, as in “Grade Five,” in which a boy, learning about the evils of drugs at school, wonders about the stoned youth flying like “wannabe Supermans/and the pavement so unforgiving underneath.”

Unfortunately, some of Nickerson’s topics barely warrant a poem. His ruminations on Three’s Company and Farrah Fawcett, for example, only deflate the iconic imagery (and kitsch) already evoked by the titles. These moments are infrequent, though. Where Nickerson floats by on a clever cultural reference, he will then hit hard with a beautiful piece of writing, as with the title poem, the last in the collection. I only wish The Asthmatic Glassblower heated up earlier in the book.