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Poetry Prose and Other Words

by Ken Ingham

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Book Review

21st Century Bread

by Leland Jamieson

cover image

Enjambing on Jamieson,
A review in verse

Bread is a common symbol of sustenance
It satisfies better than cheese or meat
On this book's cover, a broken loaf, bare hands
An image that seems to say “here, take eat”

This is a body of work, a collection
Of memories of people, place and time
Feelings freed by enjambing reflections
Into tight meter and unslanted rhyme

After fifty pages I yearned to know
Who're L.S.J. and G.M.P. et al.?
So I mulled and culled the multi-grained dough
'Til I came to know some of them quite well

My favorite poem was one from boyhood
Hopping and stopping a departing train
The ones about nature were also good
Pileated woodpeckers, acid rain
That dying dog whose “brown eyes lost their clown”
And the coda for readers and writers
Hints for getting our intimations down
On paper arranged in ways that delight us

Some might enjoy (more than I) those poems based
On fringe physics if not science fiction
Or Sumerian texts as paraphrased
In Earth Chronicles by Zecharia Sitchen
Ancient god-astronauts from outer space?
I'd rather read Christopher Hitchens

Appended find explanatory notes
Ten questions about our roots on this globe
And expert advice for fellow poets
About how to unleash the dextral lobe

I used that advice in writing this damn
Review – took a decametrical binge
Result: imperfect lines, a few enjambed
Leland Jamieson will probably cringe










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