There is a music of leaving, as surely as there is that of arriving. And it is this distinct soulful music that we often hear, however faintly, in the back- ground of our lives. McCallum's poems are about elephants being traipsed through the Queens Midtown Tunnel, an unstable child's slide, and roam- ing island dogs. About a visit to a family home before it is sold, a late night conversation in a plane above an ocean, and shrewd Irish falcons. About eloquent gravestones, da Vinci's unfinished joke book, the elegant legs of a heron, and landing on the moon. About a jackknife dive at dusk, a young girl's sleepover, and a memory instantly evoked by brushing against a stand of lavender. McCallum's hope for her new book The Music of Leaving is that it delivers to her readers those "magical moments of understanding" that a good poem can.