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Unseasonable Light
A vortex of poetic forms and styles devoted to modern and idyllic social themes, philosophy, and the inner life. (Disclaimer: poems contain subjects.)
64 pages, Paperback
Published December 7, 2017
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March 29, 2018
Unseasonable Light
By nature poetry has the virtue of being attentive to the reality of thought, but introspective orientations tend towards disembodiment and their subsequent judgements towards prescription. Here such defects are masterfully avoided by grounding the revelatory and the spiritual in the sensory experience of earthly tones and textures. This grounding has the effect of transforming words into artefacts for the establishment of a natural world to which ideas themselves are elemental.
One finds immediate delight in the delicacy and precision of exposition, spell-like in its mapping of human emotion and the inner life. Kramer and DeJonge both accomplish imagery which lingers in the mind's eye long after the book has been set down, while demonstrating themselves to be tenderly efficient and conscientious thinkers with nothing to prove but much worth saying. The many subtleties of each poem - historical references, metaphysical influences, the synthesis of ancient and modern themes - are easily overlooked when one is led along by the measure of a line, so that the book amply rewards multiple readings, and in spite of the regular first person the limitations of ego here evaporate to disclose a natural order so naked and unencumbered as to be almost magical.
I reached the final word having acquired the sense that I had been shown the boundaries of something obscure and immense and known only to the authors. Perhaps this vast and ambiguous poetic centre-of-gravity is what makes a light such as theirs so unseasonable: this wonderful little book is nothing so conceited as an attempt to reclaim for humankind the discarded moral ground of social change, nor is it anything as meagre as self-indulgent wordplay, although the wordplay is enjoyable. It is instead that precious intellectual rarity, a soothing gift graciously imparted to those who think deeply about things, and one more keenly needed to interrupt our new high speed, high saturation, ultra-everything 'reality' than this 'reality' disposes us to realise.
An outstanding debut and proud addition to the library. Very highly recommended.
By nature poetry has the virtue of being attentive to the reality of thought, but introspective orientations tend towards disembodiment and their subsequent judgements towards prescription. Here such defects are masterfully avoided by grounding the revelatory and the spiritual in the sensory experience of earthly tones and textures. This grounding has the effect of transforming words into artefacts for the establishment of a natural world to which ideas themselves are elemental.
One finds immediate delight in the delicacy and precision of exposition, spell-like in its mapping of human emotion and the inner life. Kramer and DeJonge both accomplish imagery which lingers in the mind's eye long after the book has been set down, while demonstrating themselves to be tenderly efficient and conscientious thinkers with nothing to prove but much worth saying. The many subtleties of each poem - historical references, metaphysical influences, the synthesis of ancient and modern themes - are easily overlooked when one is led along by the measure of a line, so that the book amply rewards multiple readings, and in spite of the regular first person the limitations of ego here evaporate to disclose a natural order so naked and unencumbered as to be almost magical.
I reached the final word having acquired the sense that I had been shown the boundaries of something obscure and immense and known only to the authors. Perhaps this vast and ambiguous poetic centre-of-gravity is what makes a light such as theirs so unseasonable: this wonderful little book is nothing so conceited as an attempt to reclaim for humankind the discarded moral ground of social change, nor is it anything as meagre as self-indulgent wordplay, although the wordplay is enjoyable. It is instead that precious intellectual rarity, a soothing gift graciously imparted to those who think deeply about things, and one more keenly needed to interrupt our new high speed, high saturation, ultra-everything 'reality' than this 'reality' disposes us to realise.
An outstanding debut and proud addition to the library. Very highly recommended.
Displaying 1 of 1 review