Customer Reviews

The Morning of the Red Admirals

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There are some nice images and common threads throughout these poems. The image of the Red Admiral butterfly flutters through, starting with the titled poem, through the reflections/essays "In Panama" and in the section on ten thousand wing beats. There are occasional church references, as the "Church of the Last years fallen leaves" the "Church of Doubting Thomas", a synod of crows, and a light redeeming the woods. Light and illumination also bends across the poems with a "silver hour", or days in November "the color and heft of lead", and the "bendable light" of the poem Koan. Dana takes risks with the poems, as he tries to "push past himself" into different styles of thought. The final section of the book marks his departure, perhaps emulating the red admiral butterfly, constantly improvising its strokes. Many of these newer poems work but some seem "confounding" as the cover jacket states.