----Review
and Excerpts...
Annette Marie Hyder------
|
|
Reading Larry Jaffe's
The Anguish of the Blacksmith's Forge, is like
lucid dreaming surreally beautiful truths that resonate, rippling
across the surface of seeming and vibrating deeper into the
subconscious.
He speaks
directly to -- touches -- the dreaming mind, the part in all
of us that leans in closer, eyes closed in pleasure or the anticipation
thereof and sighs for more archetypes/truths in fairy tales.
He has invented
his own language of love with which he woos the reader
into this fairy tale. It is like a fairy tale exactly to my taste, the
sort of thing I always hope to come across in my reading. In one of my
favorites, from the book:
He
wakes
earlier
than birds
speaks
to them
in tongues
twisted
from mouthing
her name
into the
pillow |
|
-------
|
The book is
cast into nine sections: September,
Her Songs, Nights,
Mornings, Successive Mornings, Months, Days, His Songs, and Sunset.
Throughout the book, the theme shows itself: sharp edges and smooth
surfaces, the liquid fire of superheated emotions the cold plunge of
water-shocked steel.
|
From Mornings:
4
He looks
into
the eyes
of morning
speaks several
languages
simultaneously,
he has
never
felt his
heart
before.
|
|
|
8
She prays
wrings her hands
in confession
wrenches her heart
from her bosom
replaces
his emptiness
baptizes his body
with her own
– she leaves
with rust
on her hands |
And metal has
its own secrets to impart: that it is pliable, under the
right conditions, just how much it will bend, to accommodate a
blacksmith's hands.
From Successive Mornings:
1
bringing
a night
without
moon
or
shadow,
She
arrives
on her
own terms
|
 |
3
He asks
her
to speak
of her
fantasies
she
bends
over
blushing…
|
In the blacksmith's
forge, there is a dance of strength and weakness
that fuses the participants, alloys one with the other imbuing each
with more than what they started from, changing them forever.
From His Songs:
-------------
|
1
He wants
arms
embracing
so tightly
he breathes
love and
never worries
about the folly
of oxygen
again.
|
3
When he tried
to describe
the experience
he found himself
speechless,
it was not just
that he found
her attractive
it was
seeing
her aroused
that moved
him more
than his own
pleasure.
|
There is a rhythm
to this whole piece, you feel it at times as strongly
as if you are right inside the blacksmith's forge, must cover ears with
hands. At other times it is the distant beating of hammer on metal that
falls into rhythm with, matches the beating of, your heart.
OE [<black
(metal) iron + SMITH]
A blacksmith
is one who works iron on an anvil and uses a forge, hammer tongs etc.to
transform the base substance of iron into things of beauty and great
use.
A poet can be
likened to a blacksmith, can be called instead a wordsmith, one who
works words on the anvil of his tongue, in the forge of his imagination
and with the hammer and tongs of his skill and art.
You will find
in the product of Larry Jaffe's anvil, forge, hammer and tongs a work
of beauty and great use, born of heat and strength and inspiration: The
Anguish of the Blacksmith's Forge
| Preview
this excellent ware. |
Buy
the
finished product here. |
|
|
|
