The Threshold of Light by poet Michael Glaser reminds me why I like chapbooks as much as I do. A chapbook is a small collection, often a third of a size or less of a regular collection. It’s a sampling of a poet’s work, often drawn from individual poems already published. It can be as simple as 8 ½ by 11 sheets of paper folded and center-stitched with a slightly heavier paper cover, or it can be an artistically designed format, like this one by Glaser is.
The 21 poems included all relate to light in some way – dawn, the beginning of the day, a morning walk, how light changes in different geographies, how light is muffled by fog. But light is also a metaphor, and Glaser uses it in similar but also slightly different ways. Light can represent awareness, knowledge, beginnings, wisdom, energy, life, and grace. In fact, in this collection, he seems to use it mostly as a metaphor for awareness and grace.
To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.
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