Review & Reflection: Sunshine while reading Poetry East, Fall 2021

It is May.

The weather has been bitter, damp & frigid. My toes, my hands (and the ruptured tendon in my left ring finger) think that winter has returned. My flesh carries a purple hue and has lost its youthful softness.

I can’t speak for the rest of the world but 2022 has captured me in a strangle hold and refuses to let go. The stress stays with me.

Creative writing and even editing and yes, even publishing other people’s works have brought me great joy. As founder of Parisian Phoenix, I love working with writers and artists.

In a recent trip to Barnes & Noble, I purchased poetry journals— partially on an impulse, but also to lend a small type of support to others trying to better the literary landscape.

This one seemed an enigma, Poetry East Numbers 102 & 103, Fall 2021. A strange add-on sticker labeled the price as $10 but the one had been worn off leaving $ 0.00US.

It’s fiery orange cover and the words “The Optimist” encouraged me. So I picked it up. Its glossy interior and color reproductions of fine art gave me tactile and visual bliss.

And so I bought it.

And periodically I open a page and read it.

An elixir.

For my spring-deprived battered soul.

I feel like every poem I encounter in this volume flows with the soothing rhythm of a river, the twinkle of a lover’s glance, wrapped in a cocoon or perhaps merely a warm tortilla.

Poetry should be easy.

Poetry should be succinct.

Poetry should be inspirational.

This volume is.