Forbidden City

from Mount Fuji A draughtsmans draughtsman, Hokusai at 70 thought hed begun to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, of the way plants grow, hoped that by 90 hed have penetrated to their essential nature. And more, by 100, I will have reached the stage where every dot, every mark I make will be alive. You always loved that resolve, youd repeat joyfullyHokusais utterance of faith in works possibilities, its reward, that, at 130, hed perhaps have learned to draw. Gail Mazurs poems in Forbidden City build an engaging meditative structure upon the elements of mortality and art, eloquently contemplating the relationship of art and lifeand the dynamic possibilities of each in combination. At the collections heart is the poets long marriage to the artist Michael Mazur (19352009). A fascinating range of tone infuses the bookgrieving, but clear-eyed rather than lugubrious, sometimes whimsical, even comical, and often exuberant. The note of pleasure, as in an old tradition enriched by transience, runs through the work, even in the final poem, Grief, where our ravenous hold on the world is a powerful central element.