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Poetry. What is the hermit? A crab? A card drawn from a tarot deck? Sage, lunatic, scholar, mad scientist, philosopher or monk? A rebel or recluse, a wandering samurai, a stranger in an even stranger land, an immigrant, an exile, a tourist, a hero or anti-hero? Do hermits live apart from others or alone among others like them? Do they abide in the remote landscapes of legends or in our modern-day cities? Can a woman be a hermit? Who is not a hermit? In this third collection of poems by Laura Solomon, the Hermit embodies the complicated search for simplicity and shared solitude both at home and abroad. These poems explore the struggle to articulate a precision in language, people, places, and emotions by placing the poet at the heart of a monomyth. This is a gut-wrenching collection that meditates on truth, the unconscious, and the sacrifices of love.… (more)
I particularly enjoyed a three poem sequence entitled "Dream Ear." Also "French Sentences." Solomon is best in such long poems where her particular musicality and sensibility get to "stretch." Speaking French & Italian, she sprinkles both languages through her poetry, but with a light touch. They are the "dash" of salt or pepper called for by whatever recipe she's working from.
from "Dream Ear, Part I" there is a man I love and if he is the man I love there is a woman I love and if she is the woman I love then he is the man I love and all is well
o world I love, o love there is nothing more simple than love:
the man and the woman and the space between
two women loving or two men loving one woman two men or two women loving one man
two women I dream of
the one whom I loved who didn't and the other who did
Poetry. What is the hermit? A crab? A card drawn from a tarot deck? Sage, lunatic, scholar, mad scientist, philosopher or monk? A rebel or recluse, a wandering samurai, a stranger in an even stranger land, an immigrant, an exile, a tourist, a hero or anti-hero? Do hermits live apart from others or alone among others like them? Do they abide in the remote landscapes of legends or in our modern-day cities? Can a woman be a hermit? Who is not a hermit? In this third collection of poems by Laura Solomon, the Hermit embodies the complicated search for simplicity and shared solitude both at home and abroad. These poems explore the struggle to articulate a precision in language, people, places, and emotions by placing the poet at the heart of a monomyth. This is a gut-wrenching collection that meditates on truth, the unconscious, and the sacrifices of love.
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Wikipedia in English
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from "Dream Ear, Part I"
there is a man
I love
and if he is the man I love there is a woman I love
and if she is the woman I love then he is the man I love and all is well
o world I love, o love
there is nothing more simple than love:
the man and the woman and the space between
two women loving or two men loving one woman
two men or two women loving one man
two women I dream of
the one whom I loved who didn't and the other who did
two men also and the man who did love me
(