"Through Yonder Window Breaks" by Antony Di Nardo is a "Don Gutteridge Poetry Award" winner. Di Nardo writes "I've confused the words around my house // With the words inside my head." The glow of sunlight, moonlight and all that they reveal is on display. These poems are curious about the world and nurture a relationship with it, blend both light and dark within the poet's inner space. And the reader, from poem to poem, can see right through it.
A window breaks and words shatter inside the poet's head and a poem appears as the words are re-arranged. A poet might liken that to "seeing the light." How quaint to say that, or speak of it as "light through yonder window breaks." Another poet long ago, the great bard of the boards, said it was the sun and its lover. But in this slim volume the poet is cut in two by windows and the poems that appear consist of interiors, exteriors, and combinations of the two that only imagination makes possible.
As Di Nardo writes in this new collection, "I've confused the words around my house // With the words inside my head." These poems crack the light at windows, refract the one that burns in a poet's imagination. The invisible is made visible. The glow of sunlight, moonlight and all that they reveal is on display. These poems are curious about the natural world and interested in nurturing a relationship with it. Windows are "like jazz, they don't discriminate between light and dark" - rather, they blend the two to harmonize and syncopate within grey matter, the poet's inner space. And like any innocent bystander ready to bear witness, the reader, from line to line, poem to poem, can see right through that space.
The poems frame reflections, observations, in language that is straightforward and transparent. Images are layered; the syntax playful. These are poems that "winter begins" and "long sighs never leave out of breath." Poems that provide "a place to sit before we leave."
In the poem, "Zooming", Di Nardo writes, "At this distance you cannot feel / the beauty of my heart." The beauty of his heart is felt in every poem this book contains. Read them, and read them again.
