Nature is boundless: it covers just about everything we know. And yet, as modern technology progresses, nature has somewhat morphed into a monstrosity in our everyday lives. Many people today fear the unknown depths of the natural world and shy away from exploring it too closely. What might we be missing out on by avoiding nature in all of its pure and chaotic glory?
Adam Tavel’s Green Regalia answers this question, among others. Tavel explores the more comforting aspects of nature through fresh metaphors and experimental phrasing. In all of nature’s chaos and climates, there exists an atmosphere of comfort that Tavel draws attention to. Tavel’s environmentally-themed collection begins with a poem titled “How to Write a Nature Poem.” This poem serves almost as an epigraph, foreshadowing the rest of the collection, which artfully guides the reader through understanding the environment’s present and prevalent hold on our lives. Through use of nature images, Tavel creates deeper themes surrounding family, identity and finding solace in uncontrollable external factors.
0 Comments
 Wilderness and a Dissolution of Boundary Review: A Wilder Time Joe Gramigna William Glassley Nonfiction Bellevue Literary Press, pp. 224 Cost: $18.00  Alan Watts “You didn’t come into this world. You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean. You are not a stranger here.” This Alan Watts quote prefaces William Glassley’s nonfiction book A Wilder Time.
Watts was a 20th century Buddhist and spiritual lecturer who talked about the non-existence of self and the necessity of a return to nature in order to dissolve artificial, man-made divisions. Glassley, a geologist, takes his own Wattsian spiritual journey into the Greenland wilderness. Although Glassley’s scientific background comes across in his writing, it doesn’t outshine his poetic prose that captures the pristine, esoteric setting of an untouched land.  Seemingly Simple Reflections of Life Review: Driving Together Julie Darpino Robert Tyler Sheldon Poetry Meadow-Lark Books, pp. 84 Cost: $15.00 In his poetry collection, Driving Together, Tyler Robert Sheldon shares personal observations of seemingly simple moments in his life: observations on a hummingbird, a physical scar, yard work, and graduate school. Spanning all of these subjects, Sheldon’s poems use crisp imagery and storytelling. Through his prevalent themes of childhood experiences, the nature of Kansas, and the relationship to his wife, Sheldon reveals to his readers an unexpected depth to life’s simplicity by use of imagery.
 A Synopsis Plants the Seed for an Otherwise Flowerless Tale Review: Staircases Will Outnumber Us Rebecca Rodriguez Jessica Roeder Flash Fiction Chapbook Red Bird Chapbooks, pp. 40 Cost: $12.00 Jessica Roeder’s chapbook, Staircases Will Outnumber Us, requires much more from the reader than simply enjoying a beautifully written narrative. Throughout her compilation of twenty-one pieces of flash fiction, Roeder creates a world in which we find a blend of fairy tale and cult-like activity. We watch our narrator live among her nameless “sisters” in a treeless forest, where they bear children and build staircases made from stumps, always awaiting the daily return of their “father.” The reader is forced to discover what the treeless forest represents, and thus, the meaning of everything that follows.
Although we are told in the book’s online synopsis that “One thing’s for certain: we are in America,” there is nothing that makes it certain other than the appearance of sparklers in a chapter titled “Fourth” (representing the 4th of July). One could weakly argue that the “father” (a self-proclaimed “god of war” and “god of reason”) could depict our current president, but the sisters are not relatable enough to portray the rest of society as a whole. Then there is the sun, who, although mentioned several times, still withholds its ambiguous purpose. The synopsis gives an obligation to view the chapbook as political satire, thus biasing the natural apprehension of the reader. To be put simply: It cheated.
In her debut poetry collection Glass Harvest (2016) Amie Whittemore unites all aspects of the universe: family, nature, farmland, music, and even the mythical and mysterious. It is full of surprises, moments of elation followed by moments of poignant grief, dark imagery juxtaposed with snapshots of beautiful, rural landscapes. With her poems, Whittemore celebrates the offbeat and unconventional, resulting in a collection of poems that mirror the chaos and unpredictability of family, both in form and content.
|
Archives
February 2023
Categories
All
|
RSS Feed
|
glassworks is a publication of Rowan University's Master of Arts in Writing 260 Victoria Street • Glassboro, New Jersey 08028 glassworksmagazine@rowan.edu |
All Content on this Site (c) 2023 glassworks
|