Four Ravens

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Without pretense, with the clarity of William Stafford, these poems embrace a wide-ranging reach in subject matter expressed lyrically with original juxtapositions of ideas and words. The voice in these poems pays homage to the past, the present."-Michael Miller, author of Waking in the Dark"Entsminger shares poems about his youth in Virginia, his journeys, and his present life in the mountains of southwestern Colorado. These poems attest to the author's awareness of the fleeting nature of experience: 'Summer of '74 he traveled with the band / wore tee shirt and blue jeans like the other guys / climbed scaffold to place speakers in the Wall of Sound / happy for the job yet already beginning to understand / none of this would happen again' "Time moves in only one direction. Yet, from an early memory of looking down on "the small town / tucked below / steepled and shimmering / with all you didn't know / in the distance" to a more recent one where men 'in the evening sat on the porch / once it was cool enough / and watched the breeze and shade /easing summer heat with conversation' the poems in Four Ravens offer a sense of having come full circle-from experience to memory to all we can know of a life."-Neil Harrison, author of Where the Waters Take You"Clearly marked, deeply anchored poems-like a good guide, Entsminger makes sure you don't fall from the stones across the currents. You'll stop to look the way you've come, like the woman in 'Before Crossing, ' to reorient and prepare for what's ahead. One poem has it exactly right: 'Stories that determine us.' As in Nancy Willard's work, questions are asked, the answers to which surprise, delight, and help to 'develop a soul.' Accompanied by masterly musical diction, so the words' tunes embed. So much to say (everyone should have an Aunt Jean!), to quote ('it was always the two of us / under the grand piano I was never alone / Mom was always playing')-Rilke must be smiling, too (see his 'Memories of a Childhood'!). A last regret: Frost, who is said to have put a gun on the kitchen table between his kids and told them to choose between their mom and him, won't read 'Counter Intuitive, ' a poem that should be framed on many a kitchen wall for many a family."-Stuart Friebert, author of Decanting: Selected & New Poems