Divina Is Divina: Poetry

by Jack Wiler

In this posthumous collection, attention is paid to the present moment. Wiler examines, with humor, compassion and fearlessness, the pleasures in life―especially the varieties of love--from friendship to sex―and how we are capable of ruining those pleasures for ourselves or for others. Jack helps us understand that life and death are each, in its own way, gifts we must live with relish, abandon and commitment.

Genres: Poetry

124 pages, Paperback

First published September 14, 2010

Reviews

[Monica · Rating 3 out of 5]

Virginia Woolfe wrote an essay, "On Being Ill." I haven't read it yet, but it is on my very long "to-read" list. The essay has now moved up in spots after reading Wiler's collection of poetry. Woolfe uses her essay to write about how little writing is done on being ill. Wiler's work, however, does take this tough matter up in verse. Wiler's adept, emotional, and matter-of-fact poems about dying from AIDS are full of raw energy, bitterness, a love of life, and joy in his surroundings: South Jersey and New York City. Many of the free verse poems follow a rambling, categorizing cadence, which sometimes shines and every once and awhile loses its flare when interupted with too much inner reflective thought. This is a good collection of poems, and next year, December, I'll revist and teach some of these poems for World AIDS day.

[Brian]

Poetry by a college friend that's good at times. Wiler is dealing with his declining health due to AIDS, and much of his poetry reflects that.