cover image Against Gravity: Poems, 1982-1985

Against Gravity: Poems, 1982-1985

Donald E. Axinn. Grove Press, $7.95 (72pp) ISBN 978-0-394-55342-9

The 37 poems in this volume, united by the metaphor of flight, represent a buoyant celebration of life as unusual as the poet himself. Axinn is also a builder and community developer, and the director of Poets and Writers. He flies his own plane on Long Island and elsewhere, hence draws on personal experience in these poems about escape from the forces of gravity. In ""Pilot,'' for instance, Axinn writes, ``He was the sky/ the endless space/ he flew through . . . .'' Similarly, he recalls being a boy and identifying with the freedom of the clouds as he longed to ``soar above'' the restrictions of parents and teachers. Here are poems that delight in the expanses of naturethe sky, the sea, deserts and meadows, from the British Virgin Islands to Arizona to Long Island. Providing bridges through these spaces are familial tieslove of spouse and offspring, and memories of parents. Fresh, muscular and spare, these poems are the work of a competent and honest poet. This is Axinn's third volume of poems. (September 9)