Review of Deep Pockets

Richard Jarrette, author of Beso the Donkey and several other books of poetry, wrote this review.  In it, he quotes Dan Gerber, whose most recent book of poetry, Particles: New and Selected Poems, was published in 2017 by Copper Canyon Press.

ASH  WEDNESDAY

Two ragged lines, weary
flesh, inch
toward the altar, hands folded
in unaccustomed quiet.

With each step, we
chant, remembering
we are tree limbs swept
along the river’s sheen,

dust layers lying on
the closed window’s sill.
Tears well
from my wrinkled eyes.

I weep
for the grief concealed
in each person around me,
but also for you

and me, how we lose each other
in self-made misery,
unnecessary
as these dark ashes smeared

across our foreheads, there
for others to see, as if
they didn’t already know us
to be transient, broken, human.

“Ash Wednesday” is from the book Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn by Daniel Thomas.

To purchase or just learn more about the book, follow this link: Leaving the Base Camp at Dawn.

Tomas Tranströmer

In Robert Bly’s introduction to his translations of the Swedish poet Tomas Tranströmer, he writes:

One of the most beautiful qualities in [these] poems is the space we feel in them. Tomas Tranströmer