Cary Waterman has written a wonderful collection of poems in the Book of Fire. The book is divided into five parts with many different themes reflected. The theme of fire runs through the book as well as the myth of Persephone, Waterman's travels to Iceland, nature, seasons and gardens in Minnesota and war. These are poems of investigation.
Waterman's poems reflect deep imagery, stark reality and promote pondering. The individual poems in Book of Fire will pull on your heart strings and some will make you smile. Book of fire has a poem that each one of us can relate to. Like the poem, Polar Bear, in which Waterman writes about the first polar bear to swim to Iceland in many years and how it was eventually shot by police. Or the poem, The Transplant, where a friend of Waterman's receives a heart and a second chance at life. Writing in Bed is about the death of Waterman's mother and it is deeply moving.
I met Cary Waterman recently and she spoke about writing as her spiritual practice. Some of the poems in Book of Fire just came to her as gifts, as Muse, and others took time. She is currently a teacher at Augsburg college and is doing what she is meant to do.
