Up Close and Personal

It is hard to define what poetry is but one thing is certain: the experience of reading a poem should not leave you cold. A poem may be the artful arrangement of words on a blank page but some emotion must be aroused in the reader. Up Close and Personal by Arnold Richards suggests that spontaneity and intimacy are the poet's goal: the poems must appear to be casual when in fact they have been carefully constructed. "Art abhors the confessional" Richards says: he knows that out of contrivance emotional truth must be dragged "kicking and screaming" if necessary, as poetry "cuts up life/ into pieces/and pastes them / on a page" (from the poem Scissors and Paste). Richards manages to cut up life and paste the pieces on the reader's perceptual doorstep without being merely sensational. Poems like Boro Park and Father's Day are memory stained to be sure: but poetry is more than memory, more than mere confession. The reader is invited to bear witness not only to another's pain, but to the act of daring expression that transcends fear and insists that even horror can be contained, and like sorrow turned into song! .- Eugene Mahon, Psychoanalyst and author of the Bone Shop of the Heart, a book of poetry published by IPBooksArnold David Richards' poetry is the poetry of a man looking out over the span of a lifetime and tipping his hat to family and friends, culture and nature. A gentle hello and a fond fare thee well. At 90, he's not yet leaving but not getting any younger. When you read Arnie's poems, you'll read what is precious to him and you, too, will find it precious. His poems speak between the words, dropping us into whispered mourning and a sublime tenderness. And photos too? Yes, but his photos are not of landscapes and cityscapes, they are photos of how Arnie sees the world. He sees the world through spaciousness, a wide angle lens, and a panoramic view of all that the world is. Arnie takes it all in, and because of that he is filled with the world. I'm sure the reader will enjoy this selection of poems and photos and find them poignant and wonderful.-Daniel S. Benveniste, PhD, author of Libido, Culture, and Consciousness: Revisiting Freud's Totem and Taboo