In his debut poetry collection, The Nature of Things Fragile, Peter Vertacnik depicts a world fraught with vulnerability and loss. Utilizing a wide range of both received and nonce poetic forms, including sonnets, villanelles, triolets, a sestina, epigrams, blank verse, and word-count, he confronts the illnesses and deaths of loved ones, both recent and long past ("Face Value, " "Odd Elegy, " "Trace, "), the memories of old houses and towns left behind ("Departure, " Sugar Beets, " "Mourning Doves"), and the vanishing of once-ubiquitous analog particulars ("Apology to Candles, " "Dial Tone, " "In Praise of Blank Cassettes"). It is indeed a book of elegies, but one that also celebrates the people, places, and things it laments, preserving their names and details while laying them to rest"--