Poet's Choice is Proud to Publish Richard Harteis's Latest Collection of Poetry

New London, CT, April 07, 2024 --(PR.com)-- The New London Public Library will host a book launch and poetry reading this April 27 from 3:00 to 4:30 during National Poetry Month. (Public Library of New London, 63 Huntington Street, New London, CT 06320)

If a crumb falls from a table, it falls to the earth because of gravity. In space, there is no gravity, and a crumb becomes a kind of dangerous missile, a drop of water, or a tear, a fountainhead. Gravity is a function of time the poet tells us; in space there is no time.

So it is with these "crumbs," written after too much sativa, mindful observations of the particulars of life, hence the title of Harteis's new book, "CRUMBS."

This collection of poems is enhanced by the exquisite paintings of Anne Marchand who won the 2023 Nancy Frankel Artist Award. The paintings are not meant to illustrate the poems, but give a happy synchronicity to the psychological atmosphere of the work, abstract expressions which correspond to the expressions found in each “crumb.”

In his book letters to a young poet, Rilke says that everything will become easier, "if you trust in Nature, and what is simple in Nature in the small things that hardly anyone sees, and that can so suddenly become huge, immeasurable, if you have this love for what is humble, and try very simply as someone who serves to win the confidence of what seems poor.” And Richard Wilbur has described how fruitful an aesthetic is that focuses on things. “Nothing but in things,” the bard from New Jersey reminds us.

In his book, the Power of Now, and later in The New Earth, Eckhart Tolle tells us that the goal is to look at reality with full attention, full consciousness. And so these small “crumbs.”

In legend one leaves crumbs by the wayside to find our way back home. What happens if a bird or some creature eats the crumbs we have carefully left to guide us? Are we lost? It is in placing the crumbs that matters. Paying attention to our life, marking the moments that have caused us to stop and make sense of what has just happened. Only an exercise in observation perhaps, but fruitful one hopes, or at least pleasurable for a reader: getting to know another human being in language. All art is an attempt to overcome our physical limitations, to transcend ourselves, and greet another with love.