Touch is a collection of poetry from the pen of a much admired, sensitive poet, with an insight of his environment, a keen perception of his own life, his past, and the animal kingdom. The book is in three parts, with a quote from someone else at the beginning of each part. In the first two parts, there are 14 poems for each part and 16 at the third part.

The first part is mostly about his reminiscences of his early life and especially of his mother. Here, the poet not only re-lives his childhood but also the somberness of his parents’ lives and relationship. If it is an animal he is writing about, that animal can act as a metaphor for his family or someone in his family.

Another aspect of his poetry is his mixing what it bright or solid with what is gloomy and mournful. The poem Shrike especially affected me because it is so human and personal for the poet. The poem begins with the admiration of the bird’s beauty and shows it catching a cricket whose pain the poet feels inside him and likens the cricket to his mother in the later lines of the poem, for as a child, he has heard his father’s abuse of his mother. “Upstairs in the bathroom, I drank water right out of the tap // my lips on the faucet. Everything was shaking and bumping. // Earth was drawing me into existence.”

His blending the beautiful with the ugly and accepting this combination shows in Cherry Blossom Storm again when he says, “Sometimes awful things have their own kind of beauty.”

Then, in Hens in the second part of the book, he repeats this feeling. “Suffering becomes // the universal theme. Too soft, and you’ll be squeezed; // too hard, and you’ll be broken.”

There are many poems in Touch that sing the praises of animals. Possibly the poet sees them as replicas of the spirits of love, gratitude, resilience, and sometimes freedom while associating with them emotionally.

The third part reflects the grown-up life of the poet with a few sections in the poems hinting at his love life, while he still blends the opposing feelings and thoughts so successfully, as in Away, when he says, “How poignantly emptiness cries out // to be filled.”

The gentleness of the words throughout the book emphasizes and highlights the pain and suffering powerfully. That may be why I loved reading this book so much, and I think each poem deserves to be read a few times and mulled over.

enjoying delicately sensitive poetry.

the plainness of words and expressions, yet evoking strong feelings.

read Henri Cole's other poetry books

is Henri Cole, a Pulitzer finalist for poetry.

poetry lovers may enjoy it.

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Created Feb 05, 2018 at 8:52pm • Submit your own review...