Border Crossings by Raymond Berthelot

“These eye opening, well-crafted poems by Raymond Berthelot reveal our need for peace and tranquility, give us hope and make us listen to free jazz.”

–Gabor G. Gyukics, author of a hermit has no plural and detoxification of the body, is a poet, jazz poet, literary translator and Lifetime Beat Poet Laureate of Hungary.

“In Border Crossings, Raymond Berthelot’s poems show us snapshots of scenes from around the world, and intermittently of the Deep South.  In these short, precise narrative poems, Berthelot finds beauty in the details of even the most unforgiving landscapes, and he sings to us with a language so evocative and true, it’s easy to lose oneself in the blossoming, often deadly worlds he creates.”

–Randolph Thomas, author of Dispensations and The Deepest Rooms, is a writer, poet and musician from the Appalachian region of Virginia. He is also cofounder of the seminal hybrid Southern country/rock band, Flatbed Honeymoon.

“Berthelot’s lyrical and ironic approach to communicative poems has surrounded the difficulties of communication itself. We attend a livestream of thoughts that travel through different geographies with an open eye to any unfitting detail. His quotidian and sympathetic remarks reveal as much as they remain: “Unless we can measure the distance / between heartbeats / time stands still”.  Border Crossings also shares a need to belong in a society in which some “still owe more to the company store / than to God”. The poet, nevertheless, has “a crush on youth”, on color and nature. He dives quick solar verses into a water of absences and desires that refresh us between sparkling pop or foodie references, reminding us that “to live / is sufficient enough.””

–Enrique Winter is a Chilean writer and “one of Latin America’s most prominent poets of his generation.” He is the author of Skyscrapers, Suns and Sign Tongue, which was awarded both the Pablo de Rokha and the Good Morning Menagerie prizes. His most recent collection is Variaciones de un día.