Poetry of love and physics

Love, Stars, and Paradigms. Poems by Swarn Gill. Literary Revelations Press, 2023.

Reviewed by Gary Gautier

Swarn Gill’s book of poems has a bit of everything, from politics to interesting conceptual hooks (“the love of time not noticed”; “we are the moment time vibrates”; “your life / in a groove no wider than a dime”) to the one-lining bravado of Allen Ginsberg (“Melville’s Ahab’s got nothing on me”; “capitalism has its eye on you”). Mostly though, these are intimate poems of human feeling, best when they settle into pockets of suggestive imagery (“a galaxy of gold / through curved lenses / of glass and tissue”). Interestingly, the intimacy is sometimes carried in panoramic Whitmanesque sweeps (“static electricity felt everywhere … the trees, the towers / the peaceful church steeples / me standing tall in a field”; “my carbon is breathed in the trees … I glide through time with magnificent ease.” Or in the imagery of physics and astronomy (“the quartz of you / crystallizing before my eyes”; “I rotate on my axis”; “I marvel at Saturn’s rings”). The collection was a little uneven for me – some poems captivated me less than others, and I struggled at times with the rhyming poems – but I found it strong overall, with lots of poems and hooks and closures I will long remember. Definitely worth reading more than once.

prostrate me
among the daisies
let emerald butterflies
send me to slumber

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Exiting the archive

We were in a crowded place.

No, we were on a boat
hearing the slap of water.

No, we were in the jungle
on a B-movie set.

There is no we
in the archive.

There is only I
with the husk
of the world

of the

sunrise, sunset, no pillow and stone,
no moving stars of earthly time,
just saltaway hope and who knows what
lavender rose and jacaranda
wine too bitter for the glass.

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New stock in NYC

Stock now replenished in NYC

Also available on Amazon. Full list here.

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First Reflection (voting is open)

#1 or #2

First reflection

deep in the night
lantern on a pier
lit and trembling
dark waves below

a voice, a shiver, a passing cloud,
a house with a garden
I can barely see

First reflection

deep in the night
lantern on a pier
lit and trembling
water at the base

a voice, a shiver, a passing cloud,
a house with a garden
I can barely trace

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Ex machina

fullness of heart
at first sight
sweet
.     calm
.          jagged
.               flowing
velvety as wine cream
.     sweet
.          calm
.               restless
the simplest of pleasures
a knit of human connection
a banquet of fruit and chocolate
deep and dark and bittersweet
and floating in the room
the candle now still
a time to depart
ex machina

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a dream of narrow passage

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The rains and the temple

Shiva’s giant trident
at Pasupatinath still wet,
a monkey, with child clinging
fast and dry to the belly,
eyes the pilgrim’s steps,
starts, reconsiders, decides
quickly for which tree
she is to run.

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Shortlisted for the Faulkner-Wisdom Poetry Prize

 

   

 

Hero and Leander (voice)

I tried to do a voice recording of my latest poem. It was tricky getting it up on WordPress, as it seems I had to make it a video, upload it to YouTube, then post the YouTube link. Let’s see how it came out. Text below.

Hero and Leander (the lamp and the water)

I still walk to that lake, the surface now still,
absence of geometry, ache of tranquility,

a voice but a whisper
soothing, sad, a silver
thorn in the side of love.

What love creates, need destroys.

We put flowers on the table
at the changing of the season.

Then the rains came. We watched
through the kitchen window.
You turned out the lamp.

“I love you more than I need you,” I said.
“Now I know what that means.”
But need, the ache, the silver thorn,
will have its bloody day.

Time passes. Seasons change.

When I walk to the lake I stir the surface,
the glitter of sun, a dangerous swell,
my hand beginning to move
into place a geometry
of memories.

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Gary’s Shelf in NYC

Finally got my own shelf at Quimby’s Brooklyn, NYC!

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Hero and Leander (the lamp and the water)

I still walk to that lake, the surface now still,
absence of geometry, ache of tranquility,

a voice but a whisper
soothing, sad, a silver
thorn in the side of love.

What love creates, need destroys.

We put flowers on the table
at the changing of the season.

Then the rains came. We watched
through the kitchen window.
You turned out the lamp.

“I love you more than I need you,” I said.
“Now I know what that means.”
But need, the ache, the silver thorn,
will have its bloody day.

Time passes. Seasons change.

When I walk to the lake I stir the surface,
the glitter of sun, a dangerous swell,
my hand beginning to move
into place a geometry
of memories.

Poem by Gary Gautier
Painting by Cheryl Gautier

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