When Poetry Must Speak Us - Softcover

Inhaltsangabe

When Poetry Must Speak Us draws us into an intimate confrontation, face to face, with some of our harshest realities and some of our sweetest and most loving recollections, often in ironic polarities: a wistful mélange of bitter with sweet.

This collection urgently addresses violence and war, love and passion. In it we find the persistent state of conflict and displacement that afflicts so much of the world’s population, generation after generation. Intimate scenes of interpersonal relations carry the onus of conflict, wistfully observing how our closeness can descend toward disaffection, dissolution and despair.

Tragedy can be poignant with both kinetic and potential energy. Polarity – the potential for joy and sadness, heartbreak giving way to celebration – are present in both topic and technique. Impressionism mingles with realism. Experience breathes through language, as poetics is intrinsic to poetry itself.

Many of these poems are close observations, in stream-of-consciousness, multi-layered and nuanced, attempting to simulate life and guide the reader through surprising juxtapositions to deliver the most significant impact.

The special orientation of language – across white space, cascading down the page - depicts the helter-skelter impact of media images. This imitates the cadence of speech as it originates in/carries out thought.

Sound and vision mingle to the point of merging, in robust synesthetic passages.

At times, a stream of language may seem to have populated the page strictly for the purpose of framing one impactful phrase. Creative use of page space expresses drama, as well as visually depicting the breath line, literally and figuratively, giving the impression that the poet and reader are simultaneously lost in thought.

In sum, these poems keep the reader present and moving. Like a handful of snapshots, life is eclectic but not actually random. The private concerns of poetry are the issues of the public realm. The political is the personal and vis versa – thence, the political poem speaks to the person, as the poet speaks to you.

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