Review: Walking Toward the Sun

Walking Toward the Sun by Edward Weismiller
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

What a wonderful surprise, wonderful collection. I must admit my ignorance-I had never heard of Edwar Weismiller, more to my loss. There are so many good poets wriiting. Weismiller died in 2010 and this seems to be his last pubished collection with only 2 others long out of print. Ted Kooser thught so highly of him and listed this poem as exemplery:

Sea Horse

You might think it would leap the waves
in a white fire of foam
racing, eyes mad with what might
be delight:

a runaway, or loosed from a god’s
team, galloping in its vast
pasture. But this one
was the size of a brooch, thin, and red-gold, and still.

The children had sent for it
from the Atlantic.
It arrived by air in a pouch of seawater containing
all it needed to sustain life as it crossed the continent.

Following instructions
we made it a small, nourishing ocean
in which it anchored itself upright
to a strand of seaweed, and, staring jewel-eyed

at nothing, slowly faded white
and died.

Such poignancy without bathos, craft without pretension, simple language without prosaism.

I wish I had met Weismiller's poetry before. I wish he had written more. I heartily recommend this collection.

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