An acknowledged master of poetic forms and ideas, Bell is a metamorphic poet who writes with authority, wit, and intelligence. Ardor extends and refines the work he began with his groundbreaking The Book of the Dead Man. Like the first volume, Ardor stands on its own as a whole as it reinvigorates the quotidian in poems which are by turns surreal, deadpan, outrageous, incisive, and perceptive.