John Prine, the Poet Laudable

During an event honoring him at the Library of Congress in February, singer John Prine was extolled by U.S. Poet Laureate Ted Kooser as a "truly original writer, unequaled, and a genuine poet of the American people."

High praise for a former mail carrier and Army grunt who has forged his nearly 40-year music career in the shadow of high-profile contemporaries like Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen -- both of whom have more often been recipients of such encomiums. Even now, at age 58, Prine cannot quite escape the comparisons. The release yesterday of his new album, "Fair & Square," coincided to the day with the release of Springsteen's "Devils & Dust" and will certainly receive far less attention.

But there's nothing on this collection of 14 songs that would give Kooser reason to pull back from his succinct, spot-on summation of the Illinois-born musician's importance. Coming after a nine-year gap between releases of new material, this low-key masterpiece arrives not just as a reminder of Prine's cleverness and mischievous wit but also as a confirmation of his deeply human values. These are values rooted in the enduring mystery and majesty of everyday, ordinary lives.

The album, a straightforward folkie affair with flecks of country and blues, begins with the prettiest and grittiest of love songs, "The Glory of True Love," and Prine, a longtime Nashville resident, declaring in his southern, gravelly drawl:

You can climb the highest mountain

Touch the stars and moon above

But Old Faithful's just a fountain

Compared to the glory of true love.

Prine is a master of small, detailed scenes in which he explores ideas familiar to everyone but in ways and words that paint pictures never seen before. "My Darlin' Hometown" evokes the nostalgia anyone distanced by geography or time feels for the place of his upbringing. But in this song, the home town is not just a place but a being. "I'm lost and I wish I were found," he sings, "in the arms of my darlin' hometown."

There are reasons it has taken Prine so long to return with new songs, chief among them a battle with throat cancer. Listening to some of the darker songs here, it's hard not to wonder how much they were shaped by illness. "Taking a Walk" (whose intro, by the way, sounds uncannily like the beginning of Dylan's "Lay Lady Lay") is an almost palpable expression of anxiety and depression, even helplessness. And sorrow fills "The Moon Is Down," a lament about the loss of a loved one, perhaps to a failed relationship, perhaps to death.

An artist who came of age in the era of protest singing, Prine still takes his shots. On "Some Humans Ain't Human," the most pointed and political track on the CD, he derides President Bush as "some cowboy from Texas" who "starts his own war in Iraq."

And yet, the playful Prine is often just a line away. Always an inventive wordsmith, you can hear his cockeyed side in lines such as "Constantinople is a mighty long word / Got three more letters than 'mockingbird' " or when he rhymes "too darn chewy" with the "arch in old St. Louis." Moving from dark to light, from sad to silly, Prine reminds us, line by line, of our ever-changing natures and demonstrates his "truly original" ability to create detailed and emotional portraits rather than half-formed sketches.

John Prine is scheduled to appear June 18 at the Warner Theatre.