EILEEN TABIOS Engages
A FURNACE IN THE SHADOWS: Selected Poems by Paul Pines
(Dos Madres Press,
Loveland, OH, 2018)
There’s always a little frisson sparking whenever I lay my
hands on Paul Pines’ last book, A FURNACE IN THE SHADOWS. Perhaps it’s because,
as the last paragraph on the books last page (P. 465) states:
I’m happy and relieved Paul (as I must call him rather than
the review’s usual use of last names) was able to see his book before he
transitioned. For I witnessed him in his lifetime at not only writing wonderful
poems but loving loving loving Poetry.
This book is structured as a “Selected,” featuring poems
from books he released from 1971-2017. I see many favorites, including from the
best poetry collection I’ve read on a father’s love for his daughter. Here’s an example from Charlotte Songs, a 2015 collection. That section in this book opens with this
movingly-rendered and so swiftly to the point excerpt:
I could continue highlighting marvelous poems but let me
just do this—open the book at random and present what’s there for you to judge
enjoy:
The work speaks for itself. I don’t think I need to say much
more than to recommend you read for yourself the generous, lovely bounty from a
poet who was a generous and lovely human being.
But I can say, too, THANK YOU to Russell Banks and Michael
Heller for prose that elucidates about this wonderful poet, and to the book
designer Elizabeth Murphy for a design that suits the bounty of Paul Pines’
poetry.
*****
Eileen Tabios is the editor of Galatea Resurrects (GR). She loves books and has released over 50 collections of poetry, fiction, essays, and experimental biographies from publishers in nine countries and cyberspace. Her 2018 poetry collections include HIRAETH: Tercets From the Last Archipelago, MURDER DEATH RESURRECTION: A Poetry Generator, TANKA: Vol. 1, and ONE TWO THREE: Selected Hay(na)ku Poems which is a bilingual English-Spanish edition with translator Rebeka Lembo. Forthcoming is WITNESS IN A CONVEX MIRROR which will inaugurate Tinfish Press' "Pacific response to John Ashbery." She also invented the poetry form “hay(na)ku” whose 15-year anniversary in 2018 is celebrated at the San Francisco and Saint Helena Public Libraries. More information about her works is available at http://eileenrtabios.com.