Garden of Thought

“Style is the feather in the arrow, not the feather in the cap.”  So writes the literary scholar George Sampson – and I see that idea at work in Andy Oram’s poetry.  His occupation is that of a writer and editor in the computer field; sometimes I wonder whether his poetry-mind is an escape from or an extension of his tech-mind – but the results are fascinating.  He coaxes a reader to pivot, shift gears, dart – so that we discover both the poem’s target and the source of our own feeling simultaneously.  What I found most interesting here was the poet’s aim: after writing a number of dark and distressing poems, colored by the pandemic and social isolation, he consciously set out to create a series of calming places, a mindscape he could visit to restore some balance.  Remembering a long ago visit to a Japanese temple, he leads us here on a precarious path toward a place where we too can rest, observe, replenish ourselves for the hard work still ahead.  Another poet once wrote that “Hope is the thing with feathers…”; Andy’s poem is fledged with that same delicate material.

This new poem is unpublished and I’m happy to have its debut with the Red Letters – but Andy’s poetry can be found in places like Ají, Arlington Literary Journal, DASH, Soul-Lit, and Speckled Trout Review.