Heidegger Looks at the Moon by R. W. Haynes

Replete with floor traps and velvet curtains, Haynes’ theater-poems include Texas, Mexico, a conference in Tennessee, a backyard barbecue, and meeting rooms at work among their many interchangeable sets. You’ll watch the duels of characters named, alluded to, and unnamed.  You’ll hear the ghosts of Dickinson, Stevens, Shakespeare, and Berryman floating somewhere near the tracked lighting above the stage. Characters named include Heidegger, of course, Jack Ruby, Cicero, Medea, Hurricane Dolly, sometimes central, sometimes walk-ons, sometimes the costume and mask for the unnamed characters or the poet. And you’ll recognize the unnamed characters, those people at work vying for power and career advancement, those writers at conferences needing acclaim. Always startling and unexpected, part of the intrigue is wondering who will appear next and where, at a Texas thrift shop, perhaps? Tragedy and comedy mix. Acts of eloquent end-stopped lines, meter, rhyme and hard-won contemplations give us a glimpse beyond the human mess, like a hawk, “Gliding with dignity, unthought intent, / Like part of the wind itself, its weightless ascent.”

–Suzette Marie Bishop, author of She Took Off Her Wings and Shoes (May Swenson Award), Horse-Minded , and Hive-Mind, teaches Poetry and Creative Writing at Texas A&M International University.

Whether Heidegger ruminates on hopelessness and desperation in downtown Waco, or Cicero rants at Cleopatra and Caesar, Haynes’s well-wrought phrasing and spontaneous wit enliven his speakers throughout Heidegger Looks at the Moon. These meditative poems span the emotional spectrum, showing us a writer of uncommon observational power. The dissolution of Aristotelian form is found in a desert landscape blurred by rain, Gadamer contemplates imagery from Wallace Stevens, the line between the canine and the human is questioned. In this book of musical and philosophical poetry, Haynes not only displays a radiant intellect, but he also ushers us into the hauntings of human interiority, revealing to us both “marvels everywhere” as well as the wounds the “nurse of philosophy” leaves.

–C.H. Gorrie, Editor at Consequence

These are wonderful poems. In the best poetic tradition, they come alive and prod memories through elegant allusions to classical mythology, literature, and popular culture. Thinkers like Heidegger, of course, pop singers like Sam the Sham, writers like Harry Crews, common folk like Big Jake, as well as literary, classical, biblical and historical characters, populate the world found here. R.W. Haynes’ masterful command of language and poetic forms inspires the reader to come on board and enjoy the ride, and we are the richer for traveling along with the poet to Waco or Ft. Stockton, crossing the Rio Grande with Charon, and visiting imagined pasts or literary spaces with Oswald Alving or Chaucer.

–Norma Elia Cantú, Norine R. and T. Frank Murchison Professor of the Humanities, Trinity University, author of Canícula and numerous other works of prose and poetry.