Some error occured while loading the Quick View. Please close the Quick View and try reloading the page.
Delicate and perceptive, Robin Magowan’s eighth poetry
collection is an invitation to witness an artist’s life recounted through the
warm slant of memory. Whimsical, physical sensations are grounded firmly in
concrete visions of the natural world. Magowan digs deep into his past to
recount memories that stretch across both oceans and decades: from the
political uprising in 1960s Berkeley to the salted air of Greece and
mind-altering substances in Death Valley. This collection coaxes readers into Magowan’s
world of earthly delights, calling forth the riches he witnesses in the poetry
of nature and in the nature of poetry.
Enough to say that Lifelines offers its readers the complex satisfaction of riches (human, natural, personal, or impersonal) rendered with refined lyrical tact into cherished possessions. As with the Romantic poets themselves, Magowan has a bracing capacity for imaginative identification: one minute rejoicing in the mysterious spectacle of cranes dancing, at another it’s the touching sight of grebes 'gathering the glisten where the moon is salt.' In a word, then, there are so many treats here that all a grateful reader can do is thank the poet who says, “come in, enjoy the feast."—Eamon Grennan, author of Plainchant