The first review has already appeared for Vessels.
I am not, of course, the intended audience and as such I find the review entirely too generous and effusive. But I do believe it captures well some of my concerns as a poet and, to some extent, my intent for the book.
VesselsAnd tune in tomorrow evening to see me read from this slice of obliteration pie, this tectonic dissonance, this mute catechism, this liminal aviary.
I am still astonished and humbled by the generous, acute attention Vessels received from its early readers, such as Claire Wahmanholm:
![In Vessels, Robert van Vliet works as a medium, reminding us that foundational texts—in this case the I Ching, Thoreau’s writings, and the Nag Hammadi library—can constitute us as much as the news cycle. Here, past fortitude and present urgency scrape against each other like tectonic plates. In the tradition of such wisdom literature, van Vliet’s poems are koan-like, gnomic, paradoxical, shot through with uncertainty and stitched together with guesswork. But they are also unmistakably tangible: van Vliet shuffles the natural world and fans its elements before us like tarot cards—“a flat cloud stained like a bloody liver”; “a nest of hair above the dry lake”; “thunder swim[ming] over the mountains.” The subject matter of Vessels is nothing less than the act of poetic creation. Van Vliet invites us to consider how and why we make poetry, and how we might use it to survive these times.](https://cdn.blot.im/blog_cd0f9da8cace4e0db9dde3bd80647e06/_image_cache/fd3c6e3c-3cb5-4a70-bc99-ff47ca0e7314.jpg "Claire Wahmanholm")
A poem of mine, “Island,” has just appeared at Foofaraw Press.
It’s been edited and revised somewhat over the years, but its roots are very old, dating back to 1992–94.
writing
![“The sky remembers / what the tongue / can no longer pronounce” because the world, as well, is a vessel. Its containment may not be discernible because the world is vast. But world——like its word itself——holds all within its embrace. Such poses necessary implications, like “the hope of forgiveness” or like how one “work[s] on what / has been spoiled, not / dwelling too much on // who spoiled it and / why.” ¶ All creatures, such as humans, are also vessels but because we’re all within the same world, when we hear others as “the red / clay cracking in the empty lake. /…we must / help each other.” To live in a shared vessel also means the relevance of courage: “the tree is more than its reach.” ¶ Robert van Vliet’s Vessels is not only moving and engaging poetry; its words also have crafted a worthwhile lesson that can be summed up by the book’s beautiful raison d’etre: “Every straight line / is perfectly round.” —Eileen R. Tabios](https://cdn.blot.im/blog_cd0f9da8cace4e0db9dde3bd80647e06/_image_cache/15f62cf4-e7a4-4bea-9640-276c595abff6.jpg "Eileen R. Tabios")
