The poems in American Gramophone are menacing—spiked with hazards, threats, warnings, and spells—yet the contained lines and composed forms temper the peril with delicacy: a pin curl in the palm, glass shelves full of violets. The collection explores this sharpness and splendor in an agrarian landscape where earth is both burden and livelihood. Here, beneath the music of machinery and birdsong, the trap is set.