A Primer on Parallel Lives

by Dan Gerber

Dan Gerber's poetry is influenced by Zen attentiveness, childhood memories, and deep connections with nature.

Genres: Poetry

107 pages, Kindle Edition

First published April 1, 2007

Reviews

[Ambrose Miles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful excellent poetry!

[Tom Romig · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's gratifying to see a writer continually develop over a lifetime (his and mine!). Some writers go through a career being pretty much the same stylistically and thematically. Dan Gerber's work has been steadily deepening over the decades, his images sharpening and his insights becoming more penetrating.

One of my favorite poems (from an earlier collection) is "A Last Bridge Home," which I memorized some years ago so that I can call it up at will.

[Quail Reads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful, thoughtful poetry about being and existing among everything in the world. I could read this collection of poetry over and over again. I feel like I’m flying above everything and looking over the world, seeing what it’s like to be many different people and things.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eloquently written these are poems of memory which reverberate on the inside of our skin in their contrast of memories made and our reconstruction of them. Highly recommended

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this collection when first bought. After almost 12 years my understanding and closeness to the poems has only grown.

[Lawrence Sullivan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is Gerber's seventh book of poetry and maybe his best. W.S. Merwin said of this collection "His latest work...achieves a transparent immediacy." Like this -

Grass Mountain

My old dog's eyes stray with me,
though she's gone,
and take my eyes now, seeing in
to what is looking out, not longing,
but how to see the thing inside itself,
the sky in sky, the grass in grass,
but not just grass and sky.

A thousand years ago or so
we came to a hilltop,
and paused to catch our breath, like lovers
unaware of being two,
or even one.

I pause there now again,

The yarrow smells like sage.

We are what wants to be.