As restless, reckless, and precise as the Colt revolver for which it is named, Robyn Schiff's "Revolver ""repeats fire without reloading" as it reckons with the array of foreboding objects displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851 and the traces of their ghosts one hundred years later. A dirge on the Singer Sewing Machine, an exuberant and unnerving rumination on multipurpose campaign furniture, and a breathless account of Ralph Lauren's silver Porsche 550 Spyder are among the collection's exhilarating corporate histories, urgent fantasias, and agonizing love poems.

Robyn Schiff is the author of Worth (Iowa, 2002). She is an associate professor at the University of Iowa, where she is the director of the undergraduate creative writing program. She also coedits Canarium Books.