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Windows

By Mark Dornblaser

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An ambitious attempt to combine poems with photographs, but the author has a ways to go to make this a professional publication.

Synopsis

Windows offers the reader a life-affirming journey, through rich prose and award-winning photography that explores what it means to be human. This thoughtful, accessible poetry delves into universal themes of love, loss, growing older, growing wiser, regret, and ultimately, hope. What is our relationship with ourselves, our family and friends, and this beautiful earth? From the aurora’s dance over an arctic lake to snowmelt streams in the Rockies, from wolves in the north woods to pink skies in the Caribbean, from hurricanes on the Outer Banks to puffins and whales in Ireland – Windows asks what it means for all of us to adapt, survive, and thrive. Born from a love of nature, a background in ecology, and a keen photographer’s eye, Dornblaser’s Windows weaves a rich tapestry that will remind the reader to be mindful and appreciative of the world around them and the people they cherish.

Mark Dornblaser's Windows is a valiant effort at cross-pollinating poetry with photography. As a poet, he addresses themes divided into six chapters with several poems in each, most fairly short. His sections include "Windows," "Love and Loss," "Evolution," "Beauty," "Moments," and "Home"-- fairly typical poetic subjects, though he has a bent for writing about nature and science and their interaction with human beings, and that is where he shows originality.


He illustrates each of his 40 poems with a photograph, and most are color scenes of nature, though a few feature people. One of his best is "Girl Beside a Car" with a poem of the same title that speaks to nostalgia.


"In Scene from the Road," the opening poem, he shows us a photo of a barn in the waning moonlight. But a man-made light shines a crass yellow cast over the scene: "Out in the yard, a sodium light mounted on top of a steel pole switches off, / and I wonder, what illumination comes from within?"


Dornblaser is wondering about wondering, as he does in many of his poems, most of which are written in the first person. He uses few poetic conventions such as alliteration, assonance, simile and metaphor, which would strengthen his poems. Despite a gentle lyricism, he doesn't experiment with such forms as sonnets, tercets, haiku, couplets, or much other than four-line stanzas.


Sometimes his verse has the rhythm and tone of country songs, such in "The Edge," where his language turns folksy. He writes, "She left me standin' in the gravel and the dust / As her tires they kicked up at me / It wasn't no surprise to anyone / Least of all to me." The poem ends: "Heads or tails / It don't matter what I choose / Heads or tails / It don't matter what I choose / So either way I lose."


Sounds like a country song, and like most in that genre, it doesn't dig too deep.


Some of Dornblaser's photos go deeper than his poetry, and they are more experimental, especially in his chapter, "Beauty." The photo for "Color" features a knockout fading sunset -- or is it rising? -- that lights up the water. He asks "Have you ever seen the irridescent mandarin fish / the pastel-hued dwarf-kingfisher?"


This kind of book requires top-notch production and photographic reproduction, and neither are apparent. But it's start.



Reviewed by
Angela Allen

Angela Allen works as an arts journalist and photographer. After a 25-year daily newspaper career in the Pacific Northwest, where she had several columns, reviewed the arts, and covered a variety of subjects including food, wine, travel and medicine, she began a freelance career in 2006.

Windows

Written by Mark Dornblaser

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Synopsis

Windows offers the reader a life-affirming journey, through rich prose and award-winning photography that explores what it means to be human. This thoughtful, accessible poetry delves into universal themes of love, loss, growing older, growing wiser, regret, and ultimately, hope. What is our relationship with ourselves, our family and friends, and this beautiful earth? From the aurora’s dance over an arctic lake to snowmelt streams in the Rockies, from wolves in the north woods to pink skies in the Caribbean, from hurricanes on the Outer Banks to puffins and whales in Ireland – Windows asks what it means for all of us to adapt, survive, and thrive. Born from a love of nature, a background in ecology, and a keen photographer’s eye, Dornblaser’s Windows weaves a rich tapestry that will remind the reader to be mindful and appreciative of the world around them and the people they cherish.

Windows

Written by Mark Dornblaser

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About the author

I began writing in my twenties, publishing travel articles in the The Boston Globe before turning to poetry. My poems have won awards from the Poetry Society of Colorado. My photography has appeared in Gourmet and Discover magazines and I was Artist-in-Residence at Badlands National Park. view profile

Published on February 07, 2023

10000 words

Genre:Poetry

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