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My Blossoming Everything
Philip Terman's new collection, My Blossoming Everything, embraces the multiplicity of the quotidian - what the philosopher/theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel calls "radical amazement." "Now all is quiet," the poet writes, "save for those sparrows and Neruda/who, too, is blossoming again, the way we all blossom, /even the dead stars, each and every particle of dust/says its testament." My Blossoming Everything evokes the largest poetic themes through the intimacy of personal memory and empathy. Ranging from personal narratives to pastoral lyrics to elegies to odes, braiding love and marriage, childhood and parenthood, friendship, the life of nature and the life of poetry, My Blossoming Everything is a testament to the moments of attention in which the world blossoms.
156 pages, Paperback
Published July 8, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
January 1, 2026
4-1/2 stars!
September 7, 2024
Review of My Blossoming Everything by Phillip Terman
One of Phil Terman‘s latest collections of poetry, My Blossoming Everything, re-invigorates the reader, especially with the scenes of spring in Pennsylvania. His snapdragons with Van Gogh, seem to pop out of the bleak end of winter and go on into summer.
Section I of Terman’s new collection is all one poem to his love. The stanzas travel with them from their first kiss, through subsequent smooches, marking important points and even to France, where they frolic even though they are at times heavy with troubles
Birds and flowers populate section III; the birds are singing and the flowers blooming everywhere. “Pretty bird pretty bird” says the cardinal and if you have ever been in Pennsylvania, you will hear that winged creature describing itself as if advertising. Terman interprets but admits: “we are not experts in bird speech”
Terman poses many dilemmas like with his father who never really appreciated poetry and admitted he probably wouldn’t read his poems as if to say I can’t validate you but go on, son, and do your thing. The poet’s solutions are not always stated.
Section IV presents us with stark images of war crime and crimes against nature, making us cringe. After the lovely scenes in the first sections of the book, these overwhelming and ugly pictures of what humans can do drain us of our hope.
The final section of the book section V gives tribute to other poets who are and were influential in Terman’s life. These include Ilya Kaminsky, David Ccitino, Phillip Levine, Nassar Rabba who lives in Gaza, and others. Terman shows that he owes much to these poets, for their expressions of suffering have influenced his own writing.
He demonstrates that we need other writers constantly to read, write, listen, speak the way one learns a language and aren’t we all doing that? if you’re not learning, you’re teaching.
Terman’s book of blossoming teems with images and musicality. In fact there are more than fifty poems. The book’s introduction is a poem: “What is Poetry?” What follows is a delectable illustration of the value, the preciousness, if you will, of poetry in the garden surrounding the museum of our lives
One of Phil Terman‘s latest collections of poetry, My Blossoming Everything, re-invigorates the reader, especially with the scenes of spring in Pennsylvania. His snapdragons with Van Gogh, seem to pop out of the bleak end of winter and go on into summer.
Section I of Terman’s new collection is all one poem to his love. The stanzas travel with them from their first kiss, through subsequent smooches, marking important points and even to France, where they frolic even though they are at times heavy with troubles
Birds and flowers populate section III; the birds are singing and the flowers blooming everywhere. “Pretty bird pretty bird” says the cardinal and if you have ever been in Pennsylvania, you will hear that winged creature describing itself as if advertising. Terman interprets but admits: “we are not experts in bird speech”
Terman poses many dilemmas like with his father who never really appreciated poetry and admitted he probably wouldn’t read his poems as if to say I can’t validate you but go on, son, and do your thing. The poet’s solutions are not always stated.
Section IV presents us with stark images of war crime and crimes against nature, making us cringe. After the lovely scenes in the first sections of the book, these overwhelming and ugly pictures of what humans can do drain us of our hope.
The final section of the book section V gives tribute to other poets who are and were influential in Terman’s life. These include Ilya Kaminsky, David Ccitino, Phillip Levine, Nassar Rabba who lives in Gaza, and others. Terman shows that he owes much to these poets, for their expressions of suffering have influenced his own writing.
He demonstrates that we need other writers constantly to read, write, listen, speak the way one learns a language and aren’t we all doing that? if you’re not learning, you’re teaching.
Terman’s book of blossoming teems with images and musicality. In fact there are more than fifty poems. The book’s introduction is a poem: “What is Poetry?” What follows is a delectable illustration of the value, the preciousness, if you will, of poetry in the garden surrounding the museum of our lives
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews