RAMADAN IN SUMMER by Bruce Parker

In Ramadan in Summer, Bruce Parker ponders a world in perpetual transition, even as we transition out of it. The sadness of everyday existence is mixed in these pages with a healthy dose of magic, which makes the author’s experiences meaningful and infinitely relatable. “No one cared how everything ends,” the poet points out in his recollections of earlier, more naïve times. By contrast, now “is like a shower/ over us/ the good// dripping off/ every moment / running away.” These elegant, inquisitive poems touch the reader deeply but tenderly as they run along with the escaping time.

–A. Molotkov, author of Synonyms for Silence

These are the poems of a fascinated heart and mind, of lucid seeing and simple language that celebrates both nature and our part in it. Reminding us that beauty is inherent in the details, Ramadan in Summer celebrates the diversity, color, and subtlety of life, grounding us in a familiar world that eventually open us up to something greater.

–John Sibley Williams, author of As One Fire Consumes Another

Bruce Parker‘s title poem captures it all – sun, heat, thirst, weakness, a sense of ritual observance, a sense of the ineffable, “even if one did not understand the Arabic.” For Parker’s central theme is the ever-present varieties of beauty offered to those who may see. Attuned to such vision, Parker’s speakers acknowledge change and decay; they understand “how everything ends.” Yet they also affirm what is marvelous, in nature, in human company, “there before the symphony begins, / there after the poem’s last sigh.” In its scope and range, in the care evident in each poem’s construction, this little book invites and compels and rewards.

–Lex Runciman, author of Salt Moons