I might say that he views as the same conflicts and conditions of the human species over time as intrinsic to their existence, passion, love, hate, grief, despair from antiquity to the present are fundamental in the human make up. And his poems intensifiy in a contemporary idiom and context this phenomena. Having said all that, I would add, that his poems by no means make for easy reading, if the reader believes it can just pick up the volume and flipantly peruse it for a couple of hours and come away gratified, it’s in for another think. It is a work that you have to go back to again and again. These are poems that demand you give them attention, that you work at them, because in their own genre, they are masterfully crafted. I personally found in reading them, that just at the moment you feel most comfortable with the verses, stanzas, you are saying to yourself, yes I am with it, what appears to be a harmless snug line tucked away in a stanza rivets you with its complexity and plunges you into new depths, which is what a poem should do, imo. <\/p>\n
The very title Heidegger Looks at the Moon, Heidegger is a complex philosopher and Haynes believes that poetry should be philosophical (in this I share his viewpoint) he believes in the etymology of the word Sophia, as the love of wisdom ( a hope, which I would also like to share in). Heidegger thought of humans as linguistic beings, language is the house of being<\/em>, but he also feared that language could be our own entrapment, that the way we spoke about a certain object or event made it into what it was and also alienated us from what it really is. This of course is a great simplification but I think i could say that his concern was that instead of talking about nature, we end up only talking about ourselves, which prevents us from being activated, acted upon or impacted by anything, which in the end makes us become – the living dead<\/em>. So accordingly, if philosophy (wisdom) is the task of poetry, it must be to awaken us by the use of poetic language to recover the world which is ours and to which we belong. Haynes poetry in its idiom both ancient and modern, in it’s scope and intensity, it’s range of variety and mood, in its quest, is perhaps a kindling beacon towards that lost light. Below are three poems selected by the editor from the reviewed work. <\/p>\n HEIDEGGER LOOKS AT THE MOON R. W. HAYNES<\/strong> w w w . f i n i s h i n g l i n e p r e s s . c o m<\/a> R. W. Haynes, Professor of English at Texas A&M International University, has published poetry in many journals in the United States and in other countries. As an academic scholar, he specializes in British Renaissance literature, and he has also taught extensively in such areas as medieval thought, Southern literature, classical poetry, and writing. Since 1992, he has offered regular graduate and undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, as well as seminars in Ibsen, Chaucer, Spenser, rhetoric, and other topics. In 2004, Haynes met Texas playwright\/screenwriter Horton Foote and has since become a leading scholar of that author\u2019s remarkable oeuvre, publishing a book on Foote\u2019s plays in 2010 and editing a collection of essays on his works in 2016. Haynes also writes plays and fiction. In 2016, he received the SCMLA Poetry Award ($500) at the South Central Modern Language Association Conference In 2019, two collections of his poetry were published, Laredo Light<\/em> (Cyberwit) and Let the Whales Escape<\/em> (Finishing Line Press).<\/p>\n
\n$ 1 9 . 9 9 \/ P O E T R Y<\/p>\nGlad to be a Strange<\/strong>r\r\n\r\nIt is good to be a stranger where society\r\nReflects like twisted mirrors the solipsistic\r\nProjections of emptiness, grinning foolishly,\r\nMentally overpowered by the simplistic,\r\nEmpowered by gadgets and electricity,\r\nDelighted by dim superficiality.\r\nThe lotus-eaters\u2019 half-stoned colloquy\r\nAchieves at best a specious affectation\r\nSustaining complacent juvenility\r\nInflated greatly by bogus education,\r\nSo nothing should make anyone want to be\r\nMore familiar in this situation:\r\nRegret is best where mindlessness prevails\r\nAnd humanity overwhelmingly fails.\r\n\r\nBarking and Sparking<\/strong>\r\n\r\nDogs do play politics, but their machinations\r\nLaughably proclaim their devious conniving\r\nMore transparent than the representations\r\nWe think necessary for surviving.\r\nApplying, though, proportionality,\r\nEnvisioning an abler evaluation\r\nViewing us likewise, does our acuity\r\nDo us more credit than the canine situation?\r\nCerberus! Are two heads better than one\r\nWhen both are empty? Are all fools the same\r\nWhen all is finally said, or barked, and done\r\nAnd final justice weighs our praise and blame?\r\nIs the difference between eloquence and barking\r\nA mere matter of a few more neurons sparking\r\n\r\nBlack Friday in the Texas Thrift Store<\/strong>\r\n\r\nThe man with the outraged voice\r\nGripped a black plastic clock\r\nShaped like a modernist pretzel.\r\nIt looked like it had been found behind\r\nA burnt-out garage, after too much time.\r\n\u201cThe price is too high,\u201d he complained.\r\n\u201cAnd the time is wrong,\u201d I replied,\r\nWith more sympathy than intended.\r\n\u201cNo, no,\u201d he said, \u201cthe time is fine.\r\nAll it needs is batteries to work.\r\nBut just look at the shape of it:\r\nI think it\u2019s perfect for time, don\u2019t you?\u201d\r\n\u201cUm, yas,\u201d I philosophized slowly,\r\n\u201cI see what you mean. Time and pretzels,\r\nYou\u2019re quite right. But do you think it works?\u201d\r\nHe glanced sharply at me. \u201cOf course it works.\r\nThe shape is right, the time is right,\r\nIt\u2019s just the price that\u2019s wrong.\u201d\r\n\u201cBut everything\u2019s half off today,\u201d I tried,\r\nNot that the honor of the Texas Thrift Store\r\nMattered greatly to me, but time still does.\r\n\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter, does it?\u201d he complained.\r\n\u201cThe time is fine, but still the price is wrong.\u201d<\/pre>\n
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\nRobin Ouzman Hislop is Editor of Poetry Life and Times<\/a> at Artvilla.com <\/a>; You may visit Aquillrelle.com\/Author Robin Ouzman Hislop <\/a> about author & https:\/\/poetrylifeandtimes.com<\/a> See Robin performing his work Performance (University of Leeds)<\/a><\/p>\n