Poems that are simultaneously traditional and cutting-edge.
Perceptive and meditative haiku, primarily about the natural world and its effects on the poet’s imagination and perspective.
Early in this quietly exceptional collection, Zulauf (Where Time Goes, 2008, etc.) puts forth a sweeping but compact artistic vision for the haiku: “lightning bugs at dusk / fly too slowly to escape / running children’s hands.” Like fireflies, good haiku are luminescent and relatively easy to grasp, but they can also be electrifying to a receptive imagination, and Zulauf’s best poems accomplish all of these things. Set on New York state’s Lake George, these haiku capture, then release, moments charged with immanence and instinctual insight. The author contextualizes these moments in concrete, lived experience, often evoking multiple senses in a brief flash of 17 syllables, as in “pine island perfume / clings to the cicada’s song / like hot summer sun,” in which the almost oppressive sweetness of pine needles and the insects’ droning song mingle heavily under a blanket of stifling heat and blinding glare. The effect, which appropriately takes place in an imaginative space outside the poem itself, is almost overwhelming. This poem also shows the author’s willingness to adapt a haiku to the moment rather than the other way around. In the American tradition, haiku are typically limited to the natural world, as this poem is, but they aren’t metaphorical. Zulauf’s expansive uses of the form are even more apparent in his metaphysical musings (“one clock’s ten fifteen, / another eight fifty four— / which do I believe?”) and his nods to how experiences, even those of nature, are technologically mediated (“when i found basho’s / lake biwa on the internet / basho found lake george”). In his paradoxical freedom within a prescribed form, Zulauf most closely resembles his idol, Basho, one of haiku’s progenitors. And although Zulauf’s haiku are a little too self-contained at times—they rarely have the revelatory aftershocks so common in the works of Peggy Willis Lyles or Ruth Yarrow, for instance—their finished quality suggests, at least, a task completed, a well-earned rest and perhaps even a “yellow zinnia / temporary home to / sleeping bumblebee.” Overall, these poems are evocative conduits of the waves breaking peacefully along the shore of Lake George, which are echoes of Lake Biwa’s soothing murmur of “…peace…peace…” that inspired Basho himself.
Poems that are simultaneously traditional and cutting-edge.Pub Date: Sept. 26, 2014
ISBN: 978-1491742396
Page Count: 52
Publisher: iUniverse
Review Posted Online: Dec. 5, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.
Heidish (A Misplaced Woman, 2016, etc.) presents an account of St. Francis of Assisi’s life, as told from his father’s perspective in poetic form.
St. Francis is known as a saint who believed in living the Gospel, gave sermons to birds, and tamed a wolf. Over the course of 84 poems, Heidish tells her own fictionalized version of the saint’s journey. In his youth, Francesco is an apprentice of his father, Pietro Bernardone, a fabric importer. The boy is a sensitive dreamer and nature lover who sees “natural holiness in every living thing.” As an adult, Francesco decides to pursue knighthood, but God warns him to “Go back, child / Serve the master.” He joins the Church of San Damiano, steals his father’s storeroom stock, and sells it to rebuild the church. His furious father chains him in the cellar, and the bishop orders Francesco to repay the debt. Afterward, father and son stop speaking to each other; Francesco becomes a healer of the sick and a proficient preacher. After failing to broker a peace agreement during wartime, Francesco falls into depression and resigns his church position. He retreats to the mountains and eventually dies; it’s only then that Pietro becomes a true follower of St. Francis: “You are the father now and I the son / learning still what it means to be a saint,” he says. Heidish’s decision to tell this story from Pietro’s perspective is what makes this oft-told legend seem fresh again. She uses superb similes and metaphors; for example, at different points, she writes that St. Francis had eyes like “lit wicks” and a spirit that “shone like a clean copper pot.” In another instance, she describes the Church of San Damiano as a place in which “walls crumbled / like stale dry bread.” Following the poems, the author also offers a thorough and engaging historical summary of the real life of St. Francis, which only adds further context and depth to the tale.
An emotional, captivating Christian story in verse.Pub Date: Feb. 23, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-9905262-1-6
Page Count: 146
Publisher: Dolan & Associates
Review Posted Online: April 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.
A debut volume of poetry explores love and war.
Divided into four sections, Osaki’s book covers vast emotional territories. Section 1, entitled “Walking Back the Cat,” is a reflection on youthful relationships both familial and romantic. “Dying Arts,” the second part, is an examination of war and its brutal consequences. But sections three and four, named “Tradecraft” and “Best Evidence” respectively, do not appear to group poems by theme. The collection opens with “My Father Holding Squash,” one of Osaki’s strongest poems. It introduces the poet’s preoccupation with ephemera—particularly old photographs and letters. Here he describes a photo that is “several years old” of his father in his garden. Osaki muses that an invisible caption reads: “Look at this, you poetry-writing / jackass. Not everything I raise is useless!” The squash is described as “bearable fruit,” wryly hinting that the poet son is considered somewhat less bearable in his father’s eyes. Again, in the poem “Photograph,” Osaki is at his best, sensuously describing a shot of a young woman and the fleeting nature of that moment spent with her: “I know only that I was with her / in a room years ago, and that the sun filtering / into that room faded instantly upon striking the floor.” Wistful nostalgia gives way to violence in “Dying Arts.” Poems such as “Preserve” present a battleground dystopia: “Upturned graves and craters / to swim in when it rains. / Small children shake skulls / like rattles, while older ones carve rifles / out of bone.” Meanwhile, “Silver Star” considers the act of escorting the coffin of a dead soldier home, and “Gun Song” ruminates on owning a weapon to protect against home invasion. The language is more jagged here but powerfully unsettling nonetheless. The collection boasts a range of promising poetic voices, but they do not speak to one another, a common pitfall found in debuts. “Walking Back the Cat” is outstanding in its refined attention to detail; the sections following it read as though they have been produced by two or more other poets. Nevertheless, this is thoughtful, timely writing that demands further attention.
A poignant collection by a talented poet still in search of one defining voice.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-984198-32-7
Page Count: 66
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: June 26, 2018
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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