num_pages: 116
description: Dr. Perlmutter taps into the two relatively distinct poetic mindsets in twobooks.  The first he calls "Western" as seen in his poems in Book Visions of Ithaka.  The second is "Eastern" as found in the poems in Book Not Quite Haiku.  Together, the reader is invited to search for thepoetic tapestry underlying what he considers to be the newly emergent FirstGlobal Civilization.For example, in Visions of Ithaka, he makes his Western voyage to the distantIsland of Ithaka, a global trip by way of Serajevo "Dangerous Legacies", andRussia "Lupatin's Potatos" and China, "Beijing Bus."  He seeks the"Universals" and the particular in "Little Sparrow".  And the high road in"I am Beginning to Surf in Cyberspace" to "Coming Home".He touches on a wide range of emotions he experiences along the way, from"Loving" to "Remembering", from "Rage" to "Regrets" and "I Don't Want to SayGoodbye".  From  the immediate "I'm Missing the Miraculous" to thetransient "Nothing Lasts Forever".  He writes in the sensory in "O thePerfumes Passing" and "A etish for Fruit stands" and the spiritual, "The bloodyborders between the secular and the spiritual" and "Tears have noreligion".  Finally, his concern for nature is expressed in "Let usCelebrate Biodiversity" and "They are burning the library in Amazonia".In Book II Not Quite Haiku, Dr. Perlmutter is less concerned with the innerself, and ego and more with the Japanese style of aesthetic appreciation of thecompact, evocative, the direct aesthetic, and intuitive appreciation of natureand events.  In the unique mindset of the Japanese poetic experience, hesees "bonfires of orange candles", "the soft sleep of butterflies and finches"and "crumpled brown leaves cracking"He also experiences a variety of rather unique images such as "prayersreaching through the clouds" and "green grass of home saying welcome back" or"trains condemned to their long tracks", Dr. Perlmutter recognizes he does notfollow the rigorous rules of Haiku, thus the title of the collection "Not quiteHaiku".  But his concenption of Haiku gives him sufficient guidance to finda non-Western way of seeing.It is, on reflection, when we embrace the two sets of poems, that we findthey are only different in some respects but basically they arecomplimentary.  They are a stage in the quest to see through poetic eyesthe deeper meanings awaiting us in the First Global Civilization.  They arein reality two sides of the same coin in some respects, despite differentaesthetic paths.  And they await orchestration during a small but notinsignificant step towards the evolutionary set of discoveries that await us infinding a future Humanity without Boundaries in the First GlobalCivilization.
language: English
title: West-East Duet: I. Visions Of Ithaka II. Not Quite Haiku
titlecomplete: West-East Duet: I. Visions Of Ithaka II. Not Quite Haiku
ratings_count: 1
publisher: Authorhouse