James D M Burdick

Etudes and Variations James D M Burdick

I did not set out to make things difficult for the reader. Rather, I meant only to explore poetic forms and, if possible, push them to extremes. Be it a sonnet, a haiku, a sestina, a pantoum or a canzone, the object was to treat it respectfully and at the same time do things with it that just might be radical. That's why the haiku describes itself. That's why a sonnet and a sestina can talk to the reader about itself. I don't want to give everything away, so I won't go on about other treatments of the poetic forms. Besides, that would be antithetical to what the book is about. If the reader is given all the information necessary to appreciate a written work then what is left for the reader to discover? It is in the solving of mysteries, the resolution of a puzzle which provides the greatest satisfaction. This helps open the eyes to new, and sometimes unexpected, realizations.