There is something that happens when the words of a poet find their best reader–Confluence–that meshing of two ‘rivers’; in which one art meets another, and illumination is the result. As poets, we all want to find our best readers, those who will come to our personal experience, and find in it all that makes it universal — by seeing individuality, and joining it with community. Gustavo Hernandez writes poems of such depth and beauty, of vulnerability and praise, and ardent honesty.
When I first came to his work at The Night Heron Barks, I knew something extraordinary had entered all of us after reading his poems. If poets are windows, readers are doors, and in this review of Gustavo’s collection, Michele Karas has found that very confluence of poet and reader in her words here.
Reading these poems and this review, I think also of Emily Dickinson’s great idea of ‘Circumference’–that we are not beings in a box, but in a vast circle, an expanse that is widened when what we write is opened up by a reader who has seen inside, deeper than the surface of the page, to that vaster scope of how words can instill and inspire understanding. Enjoy this meeting of two arts.
Read the review of Gustavo Hernandez’ Flower Grand First by Michele Karas