In Ernesta, Sandy McIntosh’s exuberant imagination breathes fresh excitement into narrative poetry. The title poem, spotlighting a 19th century Spanish pianist who does whatever it takes (such as eliminating the competition) to survive, discloses fascinating social dimensions of music and its impact: “Music will watch us drown.” “Among the Disappointments of Love” are shorter poems that show how dubious ideals of love get punctured, unbridled egos cause romantic relationships to crash, friendship is subject to a disorienting mirror, a victim of the male gaze becomes the gazer, and science colonizes the hapless body. “Nathan, in the Ancient Language” features a narrative about an affluent dunderhead who comically fails at every endeavor yet cannot shake the comfortable fate ordained for him by his family’s privilege. Replete with echoes of Anglo-Saxon music and phrasing and some actual quotations from the old tongue, the poem raises issues about the ownership of language, charismatic charlatanism and its undoing, and the (in)ability to read other people and the material consequences of reading poorly. Further, the poem implicitly asks: How should individuals utilize the power that sometimes randomly comes their way?