Side by Side - Poems Prints

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Side by Side - Poems Prints

Author: Sylvia Forges-Ryan (author) and Sandra Olenik (artist)
Binding: Paperback
ISBN: 9789389074604
Publisher: Cyberwit.net
Pub. Date: 2019
Price: $15

Sylvia and I share the value of poet and artist. We have worked tirelessly to create our book. Our hope when we began this book was to give equal attention to poems and prints, Side by Side.

REVIEW

From a seasoned haiku poet less active in recent years, a return to an old collaboration: from 1991 to 1993 Forges-Ryan and Olenik worked together as a editor and artist, respectively, on the haiku journal Frogpond. In this new chapbook, they match some thirty unambiguous yet sensitive haiku by Forges-Ryan with an intriguing set of abstract prints by Olenik. The pairings seem inspired, so much so that one wonders about the colaborators's creative process. Which came first, the verbal or the visual art? Given the abstract nature of Olenik's work, one assumes the former. Here printed in grayscale but originally in color (as the front and back covers attest), the art echoes without illustrating the insights of the ku. Side by side with Dary's end/ how peacefully darkness/slips into the river, to give one example, Olenik envisions a rectangle patterned in light gray, a small corner of which awaits the insertion of a darker piece to complete the whole. The effect is stunning --- insofar as the poor quality of the printing allows; too many of the prints seem washed out, thus dulled in impact. Nonetheless, the book remains an exercise in collaborative juxtaposition across art forms that is not to be missed. Heat wave/ the trees thicken/ with the call of cicadas; Losing my self/ within a dark wood I find / a place of rest; Daybreak/ a fawn's shadow slip back/among the pines - mrb

Author BIO

Sylvia Forges-Ryan and Sandra Olenik
	All poems haiku reveal an impressive vitality or mental power of the poet. The value of these poems for all readers is perennial. Most important from the literary point of view, the style of the poet has a richness of effect that creates an enduring fascination.