Customer Reviews

From the Canyon Outward

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I just received this book this evening and read nearly all of it at once. It is outstanding. The best new poetry I have read in a long time. Some poets are at their best in their youth before they get published. Some poets, like William Everson, dedicate their lives to the cause and create their best work in their later years. Neeli Cherkovski is of the latter class... Wisdom abounds throughout this book. Excerpts of the poems could be taken out and printed separately as zen koans. For instance, the following is taken from the final poem of the book, Big Sur: "the body finds its way / to the mind, when the body / goes, so goes the coast". Compare that excerpt to the following in the very first poem, Lost in the Canyon, reminiscent of the great nature poets: "he taps my shoulder when the water rises / we walk up the cliff and touch sails / half-buried in fog".

This book is filled with poems that capture the spirit of love, nature, mythology, indigenous people, poets, age, the list goes on... There are odes to Garcia Lorca and Charles Bukowski. There are reminisces of 1967. There are flashes of insight and stunning juxtapositions of words and simple narratives with coded messages that could be interpreted in multiple ways... I am excited to read the remaining poems that I have left, and later, to read it again. Reading this book is like going on a journey with one of the truly great minds of our time. It gives me hope, and makes me feel alive, but at the same time, makes me wish that there were more poets like Neeli who never gave up in their quest for the truth. Cherkovski is one of the few remaining bards who came of age in the sixties. Yet his bridge to this time, and to the timeless of time, is what makes him stand apart. Definitely my best purchase of the year.

A Review of From The Canyon Outward


The cover of From The Canyon Outward by Neeli Cherkovski has a four-way stop with people crossing the road and cars turning. We follow the main part of the road before us up the hill and into two tall trees. There is an opening on either side and in those openings are the influences of Neeli Cherkovski. The ancient writings of the poets he read growing up and still reads and the influence of The Beats or Bukowski and more modern poetry. Both these influences are here. But there is another facet of the cover that maybe you missed when you picked up the book. A single bird flying over a street lamp. Perhaps this bird is angelic and the muse. Or it could be the red tail hawks in the poem, In The Northern Cascades. Or the hummingbird in Lorca In The Morning, the wild birds in Love At Night? This is a book that you immediately hear in the voice of the poet himself. These poems by Neeli Cherkovski have touched my heart as I knew they would.

Chris Mansel

This is a new book from an accomplished poet.
Deeply personal, deeply natural, real lyrics moving...

I urge poets and lovers of poetry to give this book
a glance into what is possible in poetry today.