SALUDA REFLECTIONS is a diverse poetry collection offering the readers memoir-like reflections; insights regarding the present-day ills; love verses; even occasional excursions into the metaphysical. Many of the poems capture the uniqueness of a place or a person. For example, “Wyoming Valley, Pennsylvania” conveys the ambience of a “fading coal town,” where “Below untouched anthracite and a honeycomb of shafts hinder doors and cabinets as they are shut.” “The Transfiguration of Cap’n Douglas” portrays a “septuagenarian Geechie” who says, a Phillies cigar in his mouth, ‘If I had brandy, I’d offer you some, but you is / a college man.’ ” Not only people and localities, also moments show their unique characteristics, as in the charming “One Morning You Will Decide.” Closing with the couplet, “Tell me when, my love, and I will / Get the bags from upstairs,” the poem shows time as a fleeting potentiality. SALUDA REFLECTIONS will certainly appeal to a variety of readers.
–Joanna Kurowska, Author of The Butterfly’s Choice and Intricacies
“Arthur Turfa‘s poems reflect the life of a man seeking purpose in every encounter with people and nature. They invoke wisdom garnered from a sensitivity we should learn from life’s subtle treasures. Arthur’s care of for his craft is only surpassed by his passion to enlighten his readers.”
–Len Lawson
The poet uses plain and concrete language and a strong narrative element and frequently uses imagery which may be unexpected and surprising
Landscape is a central thematic concern in his poetry. And landscape implies perspective— physical, cultural, and a spiritual exaltation of Nature.
I love way the writer incorporate nature, making the reader hear, breathe and feel the forests, mountains, cascades and waterfalls
His main subject matter are lyrical observations centered on the everyday circumstances of life and the lives of common people and the real things.
This enhances his creative abilities to communicate, to relate better and connect with the reader to whom he offers a heightened awareness of oneself, enabling more positive observation of their own environment
The creativity of the author is a reflection of his love for life in that he wants to enhance its beauty, naturally.
Arthur is somebody who just lived and breathed poetry poetry and offers readers recognition of his emotional states, and experience the healing properties of beauty .
–Alicia Salabert, Valencia, Spain
Candice M. Kelsey –
Arthur Turfa’s Saluda Reflections begins with a series of sonnets in a nod to the tradition of form, a subject he faces head-on taking us with him as he wrestles with geographies that form each poem thereafter. Reminiscent of Derek Walcott’s Prodigal and inspired by Rilke’s Duino Elegies, this collection breathes – inhaling the people, landscape, and history from the Susquehanna to the Chesapeake to the canals of Amsterdam, and exhaling a benediction rife with ontological purpose, spiritual contemplation, and unmatched gratitude. Lifting us with hosannas from the hills and grounding us with bacon-scented kitchens, these poems urge us to remember “there are other roads to travel,” other Tufta poems to enjoy, other delights just waiting for us to “[g]et the bags from upstairs.” This collection is alive!
~ Candice M. Kelsey, author of Still I Am Pushing
Faith Paulsen (verified owner) –
In Saluda Reflections, Arthur Turfa sets vivid scenes in places with evocative names like Wyoming County, PA, Castalia, Donora and Twelve Bridges Road. His voice is warm, his observations precise. He recounts interactions that mean something with people from his journey. The reader can feel his compassion and care. In his lovely Sonnet for All Saints Day, he addresses ‘spaces imbued now with their silence’ and implores the reader to ‘commemorate them upon hearing/ a certain song,’ allowing a glimpse of ‘uncreated light.’ The final poem, On Hearing Rachel Portman’s ‘Cider House Rules,’ stitches the winding journeys together, concluding ‘what I found/was what I needed.’