Off the Rails Quarterly

An Individual HistoryMichael CollierW. W. Norton & Co., July 201280 pages$25.95 Dear Dr. Poetry, My father died when I was very young and I don’t remember him much. My mom told me that he died doing what he loved—rescuing children from burning buildings. But I recently found out that he worked manufacturing paper and was…

This November, word went out on a network of Boston-area choral singers: a flash mob was being proposed, and the organizers wanted to know who was game. About forty of us signed on, learned the parts we’d been assigned on the group’s Facebook page, and then—following one quick rehearsal—staked out the open-air famer’s market downtown…