Samuel Hazo is known to the world of letters for his poetry and his fiction, but he’s also an incisive and observant essayist. In this collection we meet Hazo the critic, Hazo the observer, Hazo the traveler, Hazo the moralist, and above all Hazo the human being.
“The vision that is given by what words mean, what they suggest, what they evoke by their tones or half-tones and by their rhythm is language expressed in full. In this context it is relevant to remember that the Greeks conceived of poetry as a winged horse named Pegasus. Something about the way a horse cantered or galloped approximated for the Greeks the rhythms of poetic language and the way those rhythms can come to engage our total attention when we hear them. But in addition to hooves, Pegasus has wings. This suggests to me that the Greeks were not only sensitive to poetic rhythm but to the visionary power of words to ascend or, in keeping with the metaphor, to transcend the moment, to fly.”