A Review by Frank Stewart

Here is lyric poetry that testifies to the beauty of the material world, to the bewildering turns entangled in emotions fully experienced, and to the gratitude we must ultimately feel for being alive. Gratitude for forests, seas, stars, gardens, houses, cathedrals, bus stops, and trains—in spite of—and perhaps because of—the world’s brevity and ours.

In their care for the sensuous world, many of the poems create the effects of still life paintings, the music of Bach, retellings of classic myth, pastoral art, and song. And they evoke many places, from Japan to Eastern Europe. But most importantly there are people: strangers in a courtyard or café, friends, aging parents, and lovers, who, like the poet himself, seem to be always passing away, turning into dust, but also into light.

As much as he adores the world, Shaindlin also attends to the beauty possible in language. His lines are always musical in the best sense, poised, thoughtful, carefully arranged. If the language sometimes seem to recall dreams, they are the dreams of Proust, Baudelaire, and Ovid. And there are many dreamers and many voices in this poetry. As he asks, almost directly of the reader, “I hear many voices there / Are you listening?”