Five Inprint Poets (Mutabilis Press, 2003), edited by Carolyn Tourney Florek, Forward by Michael Lieberman; original art cover "Classic Tree" by Carolyn Tourney Florek; $14.00. Available at Brazos Bookstore www.brazosbookstore.com and from Mutabilis Press mutabilispress@aol.com.

—Lorenzo Thomas calls Five Inprint Poets "moving, amusing, and refreshingly relevant poetry for this moment. From James Adams's Hopkinsesque wordplay and wit, Thad Logan's elegant engagement with memory, and Varsha Shah's ability to elevate the daily round in eloquent transcriptions; to the delightfully direct music of Elizabeth Wallace, and Stan Crawford's bold focus on the things that really count in our lives--here is a quintet of poetic voices whose songs are necessary and beautiful."

—In his Forward to Five Inprint Poets, the Houston poet and pathologist Michael Lieberman [Remnant (The Sheep Meadow Press, 2002)] writes: "Like Stevens, the five poets represented in this volume--James Adams, Stan Crawford, Thad Logan, Varsha Shah, and Elizabeth Wallace--have lives beyond the creative writing academy as, respectively, a business consultant, lawyer, teacher, business analyst, and psychiatrist. They bring real world experience to poetry, the wisdom of the combatant, as Stevens would have it, and that of the parent, child and lover as well…Stevens would have been proud of his legacy."

Introduction:

This superb "metropolitan" anthology showcases the work of five Houston poets with names perhaps not yet well known to Houston readers. And that is a pity--as these five poets ooze talent. Artfully selected by editor Carolyn Tourney Florek, Five Inprint Poets contains styles ranging from the delightfully song-like wit of James Adams, to the calm, accurate descriptions of the psychiatrist Elizabeth Wallace.

Five Inprint Poets is edited into five portions: each of these sections is then devoted to a single poet, and contains a brief biography (including photograph), followed by that poet's series of poems.

Thematically, this anthology examines relationships of all types, including the relationships of extended family members and the manner in which the self relates to the familial environment. The anthology also examines the relationships of "outsiders" to their own environment, with many of the poems astutely pointing us to the inter-connectiveness of our inner worlds, especially viewed from the vantage point of those who feel themselves distant. Lastly, these poems explore the relationships of these poets to their craft.

Houston readers--and hopefully not simply Houston readers—have much to savor here.

Poet No. 1: James Adams

The first poet featured in this anthology is James Adams. His biography reveals him, like his poems, jammed with interesting particles. It is not often we find a poet listing interests as varied as "grand felines, parisitology, and tennis." At once clever and delightful, alive with rhyme, Adams' poetry is something rare and special. He seems to be able to bend words out of clouds, fashioning beautiful, often soul twisting, combinative hyphens splashed to walls of powerfully crisp sound.

His section of poems begins with "Chandlers," a short and exquisite piece dangling the theme of rhymed poetry into mysterious candle analogies. "Go on chandlers / burn your rhymes / the long-stemmed, round / or scented kinds // it doesn't matter / no one cares / for golden lengths / of wickened air" he writes.

He follows with the lovely, elegant "You Know My Heart (To You Belongs)"--a concise and perfectly metered short lyric on past love remembered to present. In it, Adams displays his characteristic wordplay and multiple depth of meaning. It is a special piece: brave, profound, and moving. He manages to again achieve this effect with "Beefish," another poem on past love remembered.

We think one of the highlights of his collection is "Children's December Nightsong": "I can't remember / little fleeces / but in the moon / last midnight geeses." This charmingly risky, precisely timed five stanza work manages to rhyme "geeses" with "Greeces," turn November into a verb, and end with the gently brilliant "and looking up / fall fell to peaces." It is a poem worthy of remembrance.

We also think his "Self Portrait," an ekphrasic about one of Willem Vincent van Gogh's famous "Red" autoportraits, bears mention. The poem vehicles van Gogh's soul jumping off the wall at the Museé D'Orsay in Paris "on to his delicate knuckles / down his pointing index / of netherland-ivory fingers / flowing dark dutchmaster paint / onto bright cottonpound canvas…" This is powerful stuff, with excellently brushed double and triple entendres, apparently quite typical of this poet.

Adams' segment ends with a trio of sharp, witty poems about being published, poetry critics, and poetry contests. His "A Poet's Reply To Ivy Leagued Critics Drinking In Los Angeless" and "Pig" ["I-spotted expectants / hurling disinfectants / the polite dinner call of small / small talk"] are full of wicked wit and humorous, truth-laden riffs. Tremendous fun and filled with perfectly crafted sounds.

Poet No. 2: Stan Crawford

Crawford is a Houston corporate attorney who graduated from Brown University and the University of Texas Law School. This lawyer, like Wallace Stevens, uses the lawyer's sharpened powers to create poems subtle and strong. Crawford's area of poetical practice is the family; his excellent and oftentimes arresting word combinations, together with a gently penetrating style, make for fine reading.

Crawford's selections open with "Natural History," an observant piece of Texacana: "On my weekends we'd go back / to where things stayed in place: / the criss-cross bricks wedged tightly / over sprawling roots, white marble steps / worn down like soap…" Crawford observations can be charmingly intimate, as "How I See It" begins "This morning's light / holds its shoes and tip-toes / past the windows"; and ends "By five A.M. / your eyes / went out like fireflies / I love you, off and on." A tender and witty piece.

One of the highlights of this poet's work is "Harvest Sestina," a--naturally enough--sestina capably rotating its six line-ends through its six non-tercet stanzas. The fifth stanza contains the poem's best language: "A catfish moon low in the distance, / as boys with bad haircuts strained to see / their sisters pass. The tomato sun sailed / west, simmering over the harvest." We think this wonderful. When reading Crawford, one is sometimes reminded of a welcome spirit in the air: the ghost of Faulkner.

Crawford's series of catchy, maxim-like short stanzas in "Process" makes for a fine end to this talented Houstonian's collection. We look forward to more.

Poet No. 3: Thad Logan

Thad Logan is a Rice University faculty member teaching Victorian literature and culture. Her intimate poems deftly manage an array of subject matter and, also, an array of life. We much admire her well-sliced, direct lines. Logan creates her poetry with what might be termed a certain european sense of the world. This mundo (to echo Lieberman's Forward) pervades her work, whether she writes of Italy, or West Virginia, or anyplace else.

In her first piece, "Katie's," she tells us "The Steinmann's were beautiful / […] / Skin like magnolias, even the boys, hair like night." Her poems are often lean and muscular, as [from "Haunting"] "Wet pavement, bits of leaf, twig, drowned worm, / worldstuff. / Empty house, dark street, edgy moon. / Wind at an open window." Or, "Heat, bird shadows, / Sun blasting the caldera. / Just a little way from the café, / The old crater spreads itself" [from "Solfatara"].

At times, Logan is capable of the sublime, as demonstrated in one of her best poems, "Saint Lucy Of Syracuse Vowed To Be Chaste": "Perhaps you thought I didn't see you there / Hiding behind the church door / Pen in hand. // Perhaps you thought your poetry / would open me like a rose"; or, as in "Nuptial": "Tables are set beside the water / Under the willow trees. / Wine flows under the open moon / And the swifts circle overhead / Feasting on the sky." Her effective use of caesura enhances these pieces, which possess a rich intertwine of cadence with subject matter.

"It's June, and Memo and I / ride across America" [from "Summer Vacation" (describing a train ride through the United States)] the final poem in her collection begins; this poem ends with "At midnight we stand in the aisle by the open window / We can see the leaves come almost inside. / No place else is cool and dark / Like West Virginia." We think it most fitting.

Poet No. 4: Varsha Shah

Hailing originally from India, Varsha Shah is the fourth of Five Inprint Poets. She lives now in Houston. Shah's expert handling of her adoptive country's language is exciting, and worthy of praise. In almost every poem of her collection we discover--through her hints, implications, postulations--the soul of her native land.

Witness "On A Circular Route," a decorative piece about a return to India: "Little has changed at the familiar bus-stand. / An omelet vendor still waits on transiting fares. / Neat rows of eggs in his stall ready to go like dominos, to fry with onions and chilies on a smoldering skillet." // […] A cop still dresses from bottom to top in British Raj khaki. / A college gal in cut-offs flirts with a pal in Polo".

We also admire the language of "Scaffolds": "Chants rose from a language, pictorial / Words invoked familiar spirits. / Sounds made from the body's five winds / Deadened inside, left the mourners mute"; as well as the language from "Ironing Curls": "We rehearsed in velvet black / Our matchmaking aunts forbade / gossiping on a porch about destined mates, / faulty stars and the holy colors--red and white. // […] our arms autumn's new gold, glowing / thighs not shy about the slits." These are wonderful lines of poetry.

Much of Shah's work describes her experience of being a woman, and dealing with her two (and three, and four) worlds from such a perspective. The themes are well-handled. Her poems are direct, descriptive, refreshing--and a distinct pleasure to clasp to the heart.

Poet No. 5: Elizabeth Wallace

Elizabeth Wallace, a Canadian psychiatrist residing in Houston for the past several years, is the final poet of these five. Wallace's biography states "[m]y relationships, past and present, are the sources of my poetry, and I find poetry a powerful means to fathom more about myself and others." Engaging, knowledgeable, and subtle, her poetry deals usually with the themes of family and childhood.

Wallace's initial poem "Bit Parts" is an entertaining ditty exploring familial connections (and more than simply these connections), with a "great uncle" who "smokes Players cigarettes, / brings you lariats / to practice rope tricks, / a baton to flip, / climbs telephone poles / with special spiked soles, / writes curling pages of poems-"

Wallace progresses through her selections with strong, direct pieces, including "Remedies," "Humming Birds," and "Shelling." "Humming Birds" is an exotically sharp poem featuring her characteristic precise descriptions: "just to see a stir of azure / love tunnels, blur / of iridescent green, / a slash of throat red / as needle beaks sucked / sweet honey-blood my mother / grew for them"…

Wallace "grew up" on a farm in Canada. Many of her childhood experiences are chronicled in her work-warm and wonderful poems bearing titles such as "Party Line" (about sharing a telephone line with area neighbors); "Double Dutch" (about being "the second grade / diva of skipping on concrete"); "Separating" (about watching her farmer father milk cattle and process cream and skim); and "Land Signs" (about tilling "not just black dirt and accursed stones-- / the kind that bent blades-- / but arrowheads, hammerheads, / even a shriveled pemmican.")

Wallace exudes tight control in each of her selections, ably drawing to a close this fine collection of talented Houston poets.