Being Here
Poetry
By Harvey Overton

Being Here

Praise for Harvey Overton's Work

Sestinas, villanelles, and sonnets still have a place in the post-modernist landscape of contemporary poetry. Harvey Overton's How We Measure Fourteen and Other Poems is a somber book, composed mostly of sonnets, that explores the complexities of old age, sickness and death. In "Addiction" he confronts cancer with an edgy acknowledgement of the power of pain. Other poems copunterpoint the cancer sequence, such as his fine praise poem for Monk, "Night Song for Thelonious":

          It's always night or we wouldn't need light
          when notes darken and the Monk runs deep
          as we wake to dream 'round midnight
          shaded in chiaroscuro blue...

Frank Verela
Poet and Editor