Midwest Book Review - Entanglements
/Entanglements: Physics, Love, and Wilderness Dreams is a poetry collection that reflects on various types of relationships, interactions between self and the world, and the personas which evolve in response to the stimuli of nature and man alike.
Composed in relative isolation, the poems analyze and represent ideals of what it means to be human and unique, providing readers with a sense of evolutionary process that conveys both singular and quantum entanglements.
Jack Mayer introduces this collection with thought-provoking insights into and definitions of his subject: "Whether or not there is a point to our existence, and whatever that point might be, we nevertheless strive for elegance, perfection, beauty, and contentment. Relationships seem to be the matrix in which we endeavor to understand. We are entangled."
Take the 'Doctor Poems' segments which open the book. Each poem opens and furthers the discussion of entanglements that stem from the author's role as a doctor and his encounters with patients. The poems about his practice and experiences form the 'micro' introductory stage of his works, examining just one aspect of the different kinds of entanglements presented in this collection.
From the experiences of a young physician alone on the Canadian border who confronts a lethal diagnosis to the circumstances of environment and atmosphere which inject a sense of nature into the emotional angst, Mayer is adept at juxtaposing surprising scenarios for maximum impact: "I feel weightless, cresting the roller-coaster hill./For a moment of Newtonian indecision/my car balances, tips down/and I fear the fall./This hill will be a son-of-a-bitch/when it snows next month."
Entanglements really needs to be read as a progressive building block of experiences leading to realizations of the different natures of complexity, because each poem and grouping lends to and redefines the idea of an entanglement.
Washed in the oceans of Maine, the pastoral countryside of Vermont, and the changing life circumstances that embrace the poet and his craft, the poems are steeped in a sense of place that comes alive under Mayer's hand: "In sleep we float on waves/of flannel sheets and eider down,/the cat curled amongst our legs,/last night’s fire smoldering in the stove./You roll over, a gentle tide/flowing over my body."
The outdoors environments are tempered by philosophical and metaphysical reflections which inject human concerns into wilderness experiences: "From the windswept summit,/Earth’s existential mass is eclipsed/by a feeling, mystical and revelatory,/unfocused like peripheral vision./I am grateful for the respite,/for having survived, thrived,/and for my trail mix and water."
The result is a powerful reflection of wilderness, nature, man, and entanglements that form the threads of life, moving within and outside human nature to connect everything and everyone.
Libraries looking for literary contemporary poetry that dances through senses of place and purpose will welcome and relish the special reflections and atmosphere that Entanglements promises and presents.
—Midwest Book Review - D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer