The Unveiling by Perry S. Nicholas

Perry S. Nicholas is a poet who asks questions of the universe, himself, the moon, a lover, the reader. The poems in this chapbook explore the pandemic, relationships, love, loss, survival and language itself. True to his Greek heritage and the role it plays in his work, Nicholas is a philosopher/ poet who observes and reflects on the nature of being through precisely chosen words and imagery. Consider this collection of poems as a singular invitation to enter a sensitively illuminated world as seen by a professor, translator, and poet of a rich and varied background, a perceptive eye and a keen ear for rhythm, cadence, and musicality of language.

–Irene Simon Sipos, Poet/ Professor Emeritus SUNY Buffalo State

From the opening poem where the speaker makes a wish “on the island of your heart” to the final poem’s question “What new can be said?” what is unveiled in this musically muscular collection is humanness itself.  What Nicholas feels, we feel: a steady pulse of experiences an aware-life lived brings, and our reactions to it — love, regret, loss and, just when it is needed most, humor — all of it delivered in poems free and formal with the revelatory, transformative power of a poet who wastes nothing the world brings him.  An early poem in The Unveiling opens with “I’m sorry if the first thing I do/is reach for a pen to scribble,” but by this point I am already grateful and no apologia is required. I am gathering the treasures he carries.

–Katherine Hastings, author of Cloud Fire; Nighthawks; Shakespeare & Stein Walk Into a Bar; and A Different Beauty