A compellingly emotional collection.
A debut book of earthy, elegiac poetry.
In this work, Loftus draws on imagery from the natural environment to paint a picture of his speaker’s turbulent inner life and the calming hum of his surroundings. In three parts, he presents scenes in which the speaker faces not only nature, but history—be it his own or humanity’s—in instances of daily life: “At the bookstore / in the discard bin / among the sonnets, / it occurred to me: / I missed her.” Moments of vulnerability punctuate the poems, whether it’s a feeling that catches the speaker by surprise or when a sparrow tries relentlessly to survive: “I heaped seeds around / her clutching feet. Absurdly, / you might think”; “her prescient eye still / turned toward mine, / her silent mouth / singing to my bones.” However, Loftus is doing something other than merely pointing out the things that surround his speaker. By extracting the details that make up the big picture, the author comments on the interconnectedness of social and natural life. His poems evoke the greater romantic lyric, in which a landscape becomes the mind and the poem, a psycho-geographical description. Using maritime allusions, the author hints at the changing symbolic function of water as it relates to aging: “the natural wet / of water / it one day will press, / but glimmering wet, / adolescent, / a thing that knows no / lover yet.” Although poets have mined similar subject matter for centuries, Loftus gives it a brief update, with original line breaks, self-reflexive use of pronouns, and titles that launch his lines of inquiry from the highest peaks: “Every word he rhymed between / slippery purple carbon sheets / so not just he or I would see / but all would know his splendor.” Ultimately, the author offers readers a poetic climate that builds momentum until it finally reaches the present and understanding.
A compellingly emotional collection.Pub Date: March 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-981550-18-0
Page Count: 126
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 7, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
That Rewak (The Orphan Bear, 2014, etc.) is a professor, a university chancellor, and a monk only makes the fact that he is also an accomplished poet more impressive.
It is difficult to talk about Jesuit poetry without invoking Gerard Manley Hopkins. Hopkins was a monk, a spiritual seeker, and a poet responsible for some of the most moving, challenging English verse of the last two centuries. So it’s entirely fitting that Rewak—himself a Jesuit—calls out to his forebear in his new collection. “A New Task” is written in Hopkins’ memory, and in it, Rewak asks the poet, “Do you see, finally, after the dimness / that shadowed your black-robed walks / down lanes of half-opened eyes, / all the sentences left to be completed? / Is your pen busy with new, full-blown / wonders—stanzas that startle the saints?” Rewak’s own verse may not startle any saints, but it’s sure to please almost anyone else. But if Hopkins’ language is an ancient, gnarled oak, Rewak’s is a young birch, and his lines are smooth, white, and unbroken. Often flowing and conversational, his works are conceptually and emotionally ambitious but eminently readable. Take the humble, pristine “Rose”: “This little rose / is the best thing / I ever grew for you / on this small planet / you can take the dinosaurs / and mushrooms, the great / Himalayas, full of grandeur / (as an indication of My size) / but this thing I hold....” Here, the poet’s direct address and his coyly simple language remind us of the beauty of small things—even things so frequently praised as that red flower. Like Hopkins before him, Rewak addresses God less often than the beautiful, sublime world. But when he does turn his attention to religious matters, it’s with wit and insight. Here is “Verdict,” which is presumably about the trial of God: “They’ve put You on trial / I’m told: / it was whispered to me / proceedings are held tight / in a shuttered room… / but I notice the sun / still shines / because at heart You’re generous / and inclined to overlook petulance.” Would that all poets could write with such tact and humor.
Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2016
ISBN: 978-1-5390-5255-5
Page Count: 232
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: Oct. 26, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2016
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-intended celebration of Americanness that becomes mired in hyperbolic fervor.
Sharma (America Tattwamasi, 2016) explores American freedom in this collection of poetry.
In his previous book, the poet observed America through the lens of the Hindu Upanishads, with an emphasis on religion, politics, and universal spirituality. This second collection of more than 200 poems is “the continuation of the same vision, message, and mission,” he reveals early on. As a whole, it showcases an unswerving belief in American ideals; indeed, Sharma describes America, in his introduction, as representing “the supreme philosophy of freedom and liberty.” However, he also states that his lengthy, 52-page title poem is a lyrical attempt at “reinvigorating this great country” in the face of what he perceives as current “weakness and complacency.” Still, the poem portrays the nation as a wellspring of benevolent energy. Speaking directly to America itself, the narrator offers absurd exaggeration: “You are the one on whom is pinned the advancement of human / civilization, with all its sacredness intact.” He then turns a critical gaze toward people in politics, asking, “Why have our politicians relegated themselves to third world / demagogues? / Why are they twisting our sacred documents to suit their knavish / dispositions?” The result is a fervent cri de coeur that asks the amorphous American spirit to “arise and illumine the eyes of humanity,” as “It is time to bludgeon the dark that is trying to decapitate truth and / veracity.” Some readers may interpret these lines as revolutionary, aggressively nationalistic, or even colonialist in tenor, with their inference that everything that isn’t America is in darkness, waiting to be illuminated or crushed. In a later poem, the narrator declares, “The uncompromising advocate / Of racial harmony and tolerance, / O America, / I salute thee!” Sharma’s writing echoes the nigh-biblical, overspilling grandiosity of Walt Whitman’s literary style. However, there’s also a hint of zealotry here, and some readers, including those engaged in campaigning for racial equality in the United States, will likely balk at this collection’s assumptions of harmony and tolerance.
A well-intended celebration of Americanness that becomes mired in hyperbolic fervor.Pub Date: July 25, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5462-5150-7
Page Count: 358
Publisher: AuthorHouse
Review Posted Online: Oct. 2, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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