Messing Around with Words - Stephen M Honig

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Résumé :
Whether inspired by contempt or by love, whether depressed by lack of clarity or being startled by what was clear, whether looking at the poverty in Africa or at rusting shells of burned-out tanks, whether puzzled by or angry at life, or both - Steve Honig's poetry captures emotional power through a lens of sardonic detail. It is not easy to describe a book of poetry with no theme. It is, at core, focused perceptions triggered by images, events and frustrations. Poems range from sexuality and self-doubt to rage at homo sapiens generally. A conversation with Frank Sinatra segues into a walk in a hillside cemetery while the poet's mother meanders among the tombstones. Perhaps notably, the longest poem is not a poem at all, but a review of the writings of an imaginary poet laureate, whose intellectual rise and inevitable fall to age chronicle a life spent in the pain of putting it all on paper. Containing poems both in rhymed format and free verse, this book taps the vulnerability we all feel-and then brings a smile of recognition.

Biographie:
Stephen M. Honig is a practicing corporate attorney in Boston, Massachusetts. Author of five prior works of poetry, a collection of short stories and an adventure novel, he is a director of the New England Poetry Club, hosts poetry readings on behalf of the Club, is himself a reader of his poetry in various venues, and has often been published in Ibbetson Street (the poetry magazine of Ibbetson Press based in Somerville, Massachusetts). He has published five collections of poetry: Messing Around with Words, Rail Head, Obligatory COVID Chapbook, Laertes in America - Collected Poetry 2018-2020, and Burn-Out. Also published are a collection of short stories: Noir Ain't the Half of It, and a novel: The Event. A graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, Mr. Honig lives with his wife, Laura Unflat, in Newton, Massachusetts. Among his four children and two grandchildren, only one shows a poetic avocation, although all six have poetic dispositions....

Sommaire:
Whether inspired by contempt or by love, whether depressed by lack of clarity or being startled by what was clear, whether looking at the poverty in Africa or at rusting shells of burned-out tanks, whether puzzled by or angry at life, or both - Steve Honig's poetry captures emotional power through a lens of sardonic detail. It is not easy to describe a book of poetry with no theme. It is, at core, focused perceptions triggered by images, events and frustrations. Poems range from sexuality and self-doubt to rage at homo sapiens generally. A conversation with Frank Sinatra segues into a walk in a hillside cemetery while the poet's mother meanders among the tombstones. Perhaps notably, the longest poem is not a poem at all, but a review of the writings of an imaginary poet laureate, whose intellectual rise and inevitable fall to age chronicle a life spent in the pain of putting it all on paper. Containing poems both in rhymed format and free verse, this book taps the vulnerability we all feel-and then brings a smile of recognition....