Beauty and the Unrequited Landscape

BEAUTY AND THE UNREQUITED LANDSCAPE is a play of light and shadow throughout the depths of memory, feeling, and experience. Think layers. It isn't this or that, but this and that. It reads like the moments of the first swim in spring. You jump into the freezing cold water. There is that single, burst of overwhelm, and then, as you slip deeper down, you think, 'Damn, this is beautiful.' When you finally surface for air, your heart is full and tender, and you look up and see that, yes, 'The sky is the day water was born.' The poems in this book call us back to being bodies of spine and flesh and place us in the sacred spaces of womb, river, and forest. They also catapult us into the wonders and terrors of mind taking on the supernatural, citified, and mechanistic world of 'Machine.' When we meet John at the end of the book, 'Do we feel Machine?' No. We meet a man who already knows us. We feel inspired by his ease and authenticity and genuine love for the word. We feel a sudden nostalgia from the future for everything, and we are timeless in his presence.--Rachel Bunting