Cover Image: Loss And Other Landscapes

Loss And Other Landscapes

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Member Reviews

Thank you for allowing me to review this book! "Loss and Other Landscapes" is a catchy title. The theme of this collection is very clear and permeates basically every poem within it, creating a sense of cohesion. Furthermore, I think the length of the collection is just about right. I also think there is something intriguing about the procession of the chapters of this collection - cultivation, loss and rebirth, why isn't there a list of chapters at the beginning? The placement of loss between cultivation and rebirth is unexpected, and leaves the sense that there is some sort of monumental disruption about to take place that will affect the agricultural theme laid out in the first chapter. The best in the collection: "21st Century Eclogue" and "Ditching"

All that being said, this collection was just really not for me. I felt it could have benefitted from some editing, the language was not exciting and all though the theme of this collection was very very certain of itself, the narrative voice somehow still felt uncertain of it's self.

My first issue with this collection starts already with the acknowledgements. "For my mother, a master cultivator." it says, very sweet. But then I turn the page and it says "Part 1 - Cultivation", and then I turn the page again and the first poem is titled "Days of Cultivation," and the first line is "these are the days of cultivation." Then there's finally a line without the word, but then the third line goes "with my uncultivaded mind" and towards the end of the poem again "That these days of cultivation on an ill formed mind." This procession feels clumsy, and the poem unedited. Is there any other way to tell me that this is a cultivation metaphor other than to keep saying it?

Next issue is that I think the inclusion of classical reference feels cheap. It is possible to write about agriculture and fertility without adding every minor or major Greek god with some connection to either, but in an attempt to gain cookie points by likening themselves to all the canon poets who fell into this trend of classical ecstasy many poets today who writes about nature just HAS to add them wherever they can. That's a little harsh, and I don't oppose a well thought-out classical reference or a fun little allusion to the canonic poets. However, in this collection, I feel they were added more so to be there than to actually give the text anything, and comes off as uninteresting and unoriginal (Ex. a poem about love gone wrong titled "Orpheus elegy", Proteus pasture, drinking from Lethe), however the Corydon and Alexis poem is the exception as it makes a lot of sense with the overarching motif of the sheperd.

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I don't usually read a lot of poetry, but something about this collection caught my attention, and I am very happy that it did. Beautiful words,

I find it really difficult to review poetry because I think it can be really subjective, but I definitely loved it

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This collection of poems wove me through the Californian and the emotional landscape of growth, leaving me clinging onto particular lines like a seed cherishes the earth.

The first part, aptly named cultivation, seems to calmly illustrate the woes of youth while showing us what people and California can teach us. With loss, the second part, there would be moments where I could sense the disheartened tone lamenting about forgetting what once was, with notes of gratitude sprinkled in. Then the author uplifts us with the third and final part, rebirth. To Siegel, rebirth seems like a time of chaos, movement, and darkness and is described in a more personal perspective as well as from the eyes of trees.

Throughout the collection, there is a persistent feeling of emptiness. You can see this both in the pastures the author describes and the speaker’s inner world with lines like “floating ghosts of debris” and “what in all the spheres and bodies / am I.” By the time I finished this collection, I truly felt as though I had walked through the speaker's emotional seasons because of how well Siegel fused various aspects of natural landscapes to the speaker.

It would be helpful to have footnotes or some kind reference to the Greek mythology characters that made various appearances throughout the collection. After doing a quick search, understanding who those characters were made a difference in understanding the entire poem.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book for anyone, but may be even more illuminating to those wanting delightful words on transformation.

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I don't know what I expected when I opened this creative painting, and so when I felt a smile spread across my face, I knew I had found a wonderful word gem,

I am gifted to have stumbled across this work that speaks of of California heat and the land and landscapes and the past and pain and sweat and hopes and what is no more and what is to be made anew. In this era of victory gardens birthing freshly in the midst of pandemic food supply chain shortages, reading these musings from the dust of a desert breadbasket turned verdant (oft' turned back desert), these poems are perfect ponderings on the porch after a day's labor. Because that is what the reading feels like, a cool beverage in the heat of day's ending. It is loss, and gain too, and other landscapes.

"we are the linguists
mixing the ancient tongues with the new so the future understands the past
instead of the past and the past and the past the language of intellect is barred
marred now by the anti-elite"

It is said that poetry is the food of the soul, the medicine that quietly stretches the true part of the being and stealthily cracks the ego's rigid casing. Here is a wonderful short book of poems to ignite new thought and grant a moment of meditative focus.

I only wish it was longer. Recommended.

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