The eagerly anticipated second collection by poet and esteemed critic Stephen Burt "Flaunting your useless knowledge has failed you again, Though it was all they had taught you." -- from " Like a Wreck" Consult any childhood development guide and you' ll find the term " parallel play" when children under two are placed together, they' ll play separately but won' t interact. They are more fascinated with their immediate surroundings than with each other.Stephen Burt' s second collection of poems, "Parallel Play," describes lovers, friends, travelers, and revelers attempting lives dependent on each other but still pulled inevitably into preoccupations of their own self-awareness. When there are many obstacles-- overeducation, narcissism, extended adolescence, nomadic existence-- how can Americans crawl out of the nursery and coexist if they increasingly have to learn to do so as adults?