Mark the Music: Poems by Merrill Leffler

125 pp., 7 x 9.25,  Paperback (French flaps). ISBN: 978-1-928755-14-2
$17.00 USD. postage free in the U.S. 

“Mer­rill Leffler’s poems insist on sheer pres­ence. Brava­do and uncer­tain­ty dance togeth­er, their feet step­ping to rhythms of res­ig­na­tion, grief, and mer­ri­ment. Poet­ic feet? Often. Mea­sures of expe­ri­ence and med­i­ta­tion? Always. Prose poems and graph­ic poems? Yes, treasures.” – Philip K. Jason, The Jewish Book Council

The poems of Mark the Music are by turns tragic and comic, lyrical and prosaic, celebratory and mournful. Their subjects range from “the little / violences lifting their / scarred hands / in one poor truce after another” to departures of various kinds, to engagement with whatever the world brings to our doors and the daily acts of inventiveness that are among the bulwarks against chaos.

Bounded by two versions/visions of “What I Want of It,” Leffler’s poems can be affecting and warm, e.g., “Our Block,” “WPSY Streaming,” and sometimes grim as in “Negotiation.” They move between the lyrical and meditative, in free verse, traditional forms, concrete poetry, and improvisational riffs. Several, among them, “Memory,” “Words,” “Abraham Avinu, Our Father Abraham” draw on the Bible and the spirit of Talmudic commentary.

A Short History

Listen —
do you hear the music
in the earth that
makes us run? Of
birth and death
and in between the little
violences lifting their
scarred hands
in one poor truce after another