NEW HOPE INTERNATIONAL REVIEW

This first collection published by Cinnamon Press shows the breadth of purposeful vision enjoyed by the poet Bruce Ackerley. It is a lengthy offering of 80 poems, several previously published, though some are in their final versions in this collection.

The poet is at his best when writing about the places he knows well, and we can follow in his footsteps pausing to see these places through his eyes. In FENLANDS: SEASONS IN EXILE We

	come to the land slowly.
	In the end acquire its mood
	Like an old habit
	...
		given
	time, every view yields its music.

	good a place
	as any to feel the heart straighten himself out

	And yet your gift, however
	cobbled, is a vision of faith; of prayer;
	...
	of ten minutes mapping Forever.

		I've a child's 
	need for magic — a flimflam
	of beats deep enough, sly enough
	to filch the sun of his gold; a diadem
	spider wrapped in your downy
	wings: deafness in pursuit of sound.

	...guess I loved 
	you once, but when we lowered 
	
	your husk down into its six-by-two
	clay pit, just what did I feel? Not enough.

	We're just two
	more saps, standing
	in line, hands out
	for a blank slate—

	so don't worry.
	The pen's been
	Read the riot act,
	There's a laying

	Off of soured lines

	Try as you did, your world
	could not put away its teeth.
	...
	What's done is done.
	The rope’s task — refinement;
	a sloughing off of hope,

	of failed roles, squandered love —
	all the stuff of belief.

	sensing ,that despair's
	bedfellow might indeed be courage.