Paul Pines

Breath

Los Pajaros De Jalisco

  •                         The birds of Gudalajara
  •                     pajaros in the Plaza
  •                de los Mariachis

  •          corvo   ^
  •                            ^
  •                  tordo
  •                    ^
  •                         golandrina

  •                              ^
  •        are the same birds
  •            I heard in Menemsha
  •                  and Glens Falls

  •                                    in Bala Cynwyd
  •                              and outside our bedroom
  •                           on the Rue Bievre

  •                   the very birds
  •              that sang to Plato
  •           and Aristophanes

  •             the Venerable Bede
  •                 Torquemada
  •                 my father in Galicia

  •          crow       ^
  •                   ^
  •                 thrush

  •                   ^
  •                         swallow

  •                                ^

  •                                    will sing
  •                           our daughter awake
  •                                after I am gone

  •                                                ^
  •                                     listen for me
  •                              Charlotte
  •                      in their song


    • Reviews



    Paul Pines embarks upon a search for cosmic fuel in Breath, a book of poetry steeped in a problem with the cellular body. As an asthmatic, Pines writes from an affliction increasingly linked to a childhood upset of immune cells, which lead to a dangerous overproduction of antibodies in the lungs. The archetypal, environmental, psychological, social and spiritual significance of asthma is always in the background of Breath. With feeling and intelligence, Pines illustrates how Breath circulates as poetic form through blocked passages between matter and energy, childhood and adulthood, name and voice, image and articulation, reception and resuscitation.

    Kenneth Warren - HOUSE ORGAN, #18, spring '97