Perhaps the most distinctive aspect of The Boatloads is its overt references to church and Christianity. Dan Albergotti’s references are not mere proselytizing, though. In fact, the first poem in the book, “Vestibule,” tells the story of the author’s teenage experience making love to his girlfriend in a university chapel, saying: “Lord of this other world, let me recall that night. / Let me again hear how our whispered exclamations / near the end seemed like rising hymnal rhythm / and let me feel how those forgotten words came / from somewhere else and meant something.”

Dan Albergotti teaches at Coastal Carolina University in Conway, South Carolina.