Book Review

News Of The Day—Poems of the Times
by John
Poetic Matrix Press, 2007.

1.

There are three main subject areas of the book, and interesting transit among them. One area involves philosophical issues about the larger questions of existence—why are we here, and for what purpose. The poet arrives at his answers not through philosophy, but by approaching experience a certain way, as described in poems on the other subject areas in this volume. These involve the poet's love of nature, his love of the arts, particularly music and jazz, and his expression of the essential joy in human relations, particularly love.

This attitude of openness involves one's whole being. It's also the attitude which the author sees in Walt Whitman, and also in the beat poets, who are mentioned again and again in this book, who were so influenced by the Eastern meditative traditions, which they helped popularize in the US. Martin Buber, the philosopher, expresses this attitude of openness and dialogue between a person and other living beings, in his famous phrase, all real living is meeting.

That beauty provides an intimation of love, is an attitude that dates back not just to the beat poets, but to the Romantic poets, as Blake and Wordsworth, to Shakespeare, and, indeed, it goes all the way back to Plato. There is definitely a mystical sense that informs these poetic reflections on nature and beauty, in which the poet regards beauty as a path toward both rejuvenation on the earthly level, as well as unity with the cosmos.

Sometimes, poet John pulls several themes into a single poem, in a particularly striking way. This short poem pulls together the aesthetic—specially, the musical—with existential pathos and human joy.

Soft Night

Rain on a roof
Metal ringing up and down in front of
Concrete played steely in the background, voices

'cross the way sing up slightly and the long rolling sound,
tires on asphalt pools, night rolling
years of cold water, the flash behind a young gray
shadow

people forgetting the way they came
into the world, the gift giving and the blood
spilt, everywhere.

2.

Despite the poems on the joys of living, the unanswered questions about the why's and wherefore's of our existence, and the all too real certainty of human suffering, remain persistent themes in the book.. The poet brings his own experience as a Vietnam vet to bear on these issues. He also describes how he follows Gregory Corso's custom of starting his readings by reading a bit of the news of the day, to his audience. One of John's news of the day poems describes the philosophical limits of how we understand ourselves and the world. This is last page of his poem The Social—News of the Day—Jazzaz Beat Concern 1995:

I sit on the porch, breathe deep,
take pine trees, crickets,
The occasional owl
& the oil of the night
onto ribs;
the heaviness is not oppressive,
it is the blanket of the Dark Madonna.

The pain has come back stronger
and is harder to dispel.

A Mexican family drowns in the Tijuana river -
gringo politicians want to put up 3 fences on the border.

Am I crazy.
Caught in the imbalance,
Caught
In the
dis ease
of the social game.

Where do we find
the poetry of our lives?

The play of opposites

On the thin skin

Of you

And I.

And so, as we attempt to answer the philosophical questions of existence, these drop away into the lap of love, and the poet's joy in nature and human relationships. This seems to be the message of News Of The Day—Poems of the Times by John, a message ultimately, of hope and affirmation.

Reviewed by Paul Dolinsky
editor@thegoldenlantern.com