Dan's Book Review:

Touched By Its Rays

by Karma Hope

If sitting under a large, leafy tree with a cool drink close by and a book of poetry in your lap is your idea of a perfect afternoon, then perfection just got even more profound. Through the exploration of topics ranging from love and parenthood to art and politics, Walter Donway's Touched By Its Rays (The Atlas Society, 2008) takes readers on a thoughtful journey into revelations of the human spirit.

While the larger themes in Touched By Its Rays can seem particularly political and one-sided, many of the poems are intrinsically universal. Every parent can relate to "To Ethan," and anyone who has ever loved can hear himself in "Knowing You." "Seven Callers Waiting" explores the intricacies that keep us from reaching out to those we care about. "A Dialogue of Fear and Love" delves into the complex emotions surrounding love and fear of rejection. In "A Sense of Life," Donway uses language to create lasting images of the sea, love and an artist's pain.

Other poems are fresh and relevant to today's world while still maintaining the honor of poets past. In "Above Tiananmen Square," Donway's voice reaches back across several decades to say:

Seeing but thin shoulders, askew
With his incongruous bundles,
Who can tell us if he knew
That great deeds irritate our age,
Which inters them in pearls of glory
To spare us inconvenient rage?

Throughout Touched By Its Rays, Donway employs traditional form, cadence, music and rhyme to create artful scenes and lasting images. In his careful merging, mere words are turned into something much grander: an experience. This collection of thought-provoking poems will linger in your mind throughout the day and leave you wondering, just a little, about your own soul. And Donway's images, which come into focus through descriptive, weaving language, will leave you longing to walk the seashore or stare at the moon.

Assuming, of course, that you can stand the brief break from perfection under that large, leafy tree.

Walter Donway is the founder and editor of the quarterly journal, Cerebrum: The Dana Forum on Brain Science. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Medical World News, Newsday, Cosmopolitan and many others. He is a member of Southampton Poets' Workshop, and contributes to Poets House in New York City.

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