Masterful poems from a seasoned writer.
Rewak’s (The Right Taxi, 2012) latest collection showcases the work of a skilled poet near the peak of his powers.
The poet, a Jesuit priest, spent years as a university president, and readers could create a classics course by tracking down all the allusions in his exquisite verse. All the greats are here—Shakespeare, Blake, Sophocles, Wordsworth—filling and animating Rewak’s balanced lines. He also pays homage to more recent luminaries: A tribute to the late, great Ansel Adams, for example, praises the photographer’s ability to match weight with airiness: “All those mountains / with the tonnage of centuries / suddenly leap / in magic / how you’ve subverted / gravity to show us / the lightness of creation.” Rewak successfully conveys a similar tension in his own poetry. While he addresses subjects that are, by turns, serious and light, his gravitas is never ponderous, and his levity never lacks substance. On one page, he meditates on the old myth that Jesus crafted his own cross using the carpentry skills he learned from Joseph: “the home he built / stands on Golgotha / you could not know / how he would use / your gift.” Switching gears just a handful of pages later, the poet wonders at the meter an ant would use if he talked in verse: “He spoke, / at first, in accents Chaucerian—I sensed / a primordial de-bump…but then / changed to the chittering of a pious Pound.” Only a talented writer can pull off such radical shifts in topic and tone, and Rewak does it all in free verse that never devolves into the lazier cant of lesser stylists. Best of all, his poetry rewards rereading, as images that at first seem merely clever have a depth that only reveals itself the second or third time around. In a touching meditation on Psalm 46, he asks, “Forgive me, Lord, for being mundane.” A funny request, since Rewak never is.
Masterful poems from a seasoned writer.Pub Date: March 14, 2014
ISBN: 978-1495382161
Page Count: 126
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2014
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
PERSPECTIVES
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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