April 24, 2003 - Personal Web Site: Symphony Number One and Selected Poems by Malawi RPCV Andrew Oerke, published by Mellen University Press, Reviewed by Thomas Jones

Peace Corps Online: Directory: Malawi: Peace Corps Malawi : The Peace Corps in Malawi: April 24, 2003 - Personal Web Site: Symphony Number One and Selected Poems by Malawi RPCV Andrew Oerke, published by Mellen University Press, Reviewed by Thomas Jones

By Admin1 (admin) on Thursday, April 24, 2003 - 2:26 pm: Edit Post

Symphony Number One and Selected Poems by Malawi RPCV Andrew Oerke, published by Mellen University Press, Reviewed by Thomas Jones



Symphony Number One and Selected Poems by Malawi RPCV Andrew Oerke, published by Mellen University Press, Reviewed by Thomas Jones

SYMPHONY NUMBER ONE AND SELECTED POEMS, by Andrew Oerke, published by Mellen University Press, Reviewed by Thomas Jones.

Andrew H. Oerke's book of poems entitled "Symphony Number One and Selected Poems" is a wonderful set of poems about humanity's existential struggle. This is heavy reading.


Each poem is finely crafted, often falling into iambic pentameter or tetrameter and seldom rhyming but using alliteration. The imagery is striking if not shocking. Take, for example, the poem "Return from the Sun," the first three lines read:

In the hexahedron of the sun's eye,
The golden honeycomb gilded with mirrors,
My silhouette stalagmite of a cat's eye…

The honey is a distillate of air "scented with buckwheat." How I can just now smell that buckwheat in the sunny field! I can just imagine what it must be like to have visited the sun and returned all golden and brassy.


As the reader might guess, his poems are also surreal, however, they are not so incomprehensible as to be inaccessible or unintelligible to most readers of poetry.
The best poems in the book are probably "Hippo's Head," "Hawk on the Roadside," "Return from the Sun" and "The Sun," which I picked because of their virtuosity and originality. In Oerke's work I hear echoes of Wallace Stevens and seventeenth century poets in terms of vocabulary and style. The poem called "Harvest" has that seventeenth century feel that is found in a poet like Donne or Herrick.


So, I suppose if one were to label Oerke's work, one might call it neo-Baroque as the structure of the ideas and the poems themselves could buttress the sides of any cathedral, whether real or imaginative. These poems are truly metaphysical in an age when metaphysics is out of fashion.


The only complaint I have about the book is its capacious references or allusions at the end of the book.
Despite this, I recommend the book for any serious reader of poetry.



Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.

Story Source: Personal Web Site

This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; COS - Malawi; Writers; Poetry

PCOL4468
29

.

By baldwinbillie (cache-rtc-aa07.proxy.aol.com - 152.163.100.11) on Wednesday, August 23, 2006 - 1:24 pm: Edit Post

Pray Peace for Jerusalem

Turn from evil do good, and maintain peace,
Search for peace and work hard to maintain it,
We speak of peacde, they speak of wanting war,
Pray peace in Jerusalem God chosen city,
O Jerusalem peace and prosperity,
In your palaces and peace in your walls,
May Christ give you peace for the sake of the,
House of the Lord our God, O Jerusalem.
Resolve differences and conflicts make peace,
Jesus a gift of peace and heart,
God Fathere and Jesus Christ give you peace!


Add a Message


This is a public posting area. Enter your username and password if you have an account. Otherwise, enter your full name as your username and leave the password blank. Your e-mail address is optional.
Username:  
Password:
E-mail: