Poet Hayan Charara (Something Sinister), the first-generation American son of Lebanese immigrants, is a multifaceted writer, equally comfortable in the long, languid line and the short poem, terse and biting. His fourth poetry collection, These Trees, Those Leaves, This Flower, That Fruit, shows off his range, starting with its gorgeous title. Taken from a line in the poem "Under the Sun," the title demonstrates the poet's facility with cadence, whether a rhythmic pulse standing alone or in the midst of this longer poem, which asks, "Which is holier,/ oak or linden?/ The pleasure of the oak,/ the sorrow of the linden." This follows the first poem in the collection, "Self-Portrait in Retrospect," a short gut-punch of a piece on age, beauty and identity. Most of the poems in the first section are brief, including a section of "Unresolved Haiku."
Following a section break, Charara turns to longer pieces, each line lengthening and each poem teetering on the edge between prose and poetry. This section, broken into two long poems, draws on the words of others, whether biblical or Homeric allusions in "Prelude" or the interwoven quotes in "Fugue" from sources such as Alan Watts and Philip Levine. These selections are also more overtly political, addressing issues of war, racism and the implications of the word terrorism. The final section returns to the style of the first, with wry reflections on loss and grief, asking: "To what wisdom/ does suffering/ give birth?/ --and must we always/ learn from it?" Charara offers few answers but insists the questions themselves are worthwhile. --Sara Beth West, freelance reviewer and librarian