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Amalia Iglesias Serna. Lázaro se sacude las ortigas. 2005. 76 pp.

Sometimes a book will seem different to me on re-reading. This is one of those books. Now I am noting more its meditative qualities. Lazarus shakes off the nettles.

***

I'd like to advocate the reading books of poetry as a more or less normal thing to do. I'm not skipping through the books particularly fast. I'm enjoying them and reading every poem. I occasionally skim, just like I do with novels, when it doesn't seem like the writer is doing anything particularly interesting for a page or so. On the other hand, I'll also go back and re-read poems. Some of these books I'm reading for the first time; others have been favorites for years. Many have sat on my review shelf while I tried to finish the Lorca book.

There is the poetry of the poem and the poetry of the daily living with poetry. The daily living with it does not imply less of a critical judgment. There is simply more poetry, but the mediocre does not drown out the poetry of the poem.

There is also the poetry of friends and acquaintances. Fortunately I would not be friends with someone who is not a good poet, so that's not a problem.