Centres of Treatment: Selected Poems, 1992-2006

These are big city poems, hip, and often brutally frank, yet seldom without humor, incisive wit, flashes of satire. As Irish critic Abigail McCullough says, Isaac's poems, "brim with intensity, yet every word and metaphor is handled with iron-like discipline. Lesser poets would stumble.” The title poem wickedly, and hilariously, juxtaposes the responses of two men-—a con just out of jail and a befuddled, if keenly observant, middle age professional-—to the often unproven therapies administered in addiction treatment centers.