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There’s an artfulness of intention behind this work, but placing these anagrammed lines beside those of Shakespeare doesn’t enhance it. Ketner may have discovered an ingenious technique, but unfortunately their method does not result in ingenious poetry.
Ultimately, Mitchell’s language is reminiscent of Dylan Thomas’s “Fern Hill” and draws from a similar source: life bursting forth on the farm beside an undercurrent of death. As Thomas’s famed line says, “Time held me green and dying/ Though I sang in my chains like the sea.”
Coming from deep inside, these poems work by free association, often alluding to falling rain, snow, and even sunlight pouring onto a surface, all of which add a spiritual resonance to these hypnotic and meditative poems.
Coming from Cole’s fascination with word play and paradox, the best of these poems are laced with alliteration and rhyme, shape-shifting as they focus on the letters of the Hebrew alphabet and the creative process. For poetry readers who like pondering deep questions.