Kirjahaku

A selection by the author of poems from his previously published collections: Searching for What Is Not There, How to Be Silent, Dylan Thomas and the Writing Shed, Three Ages of Women, The Uncertain Lover, Coming Home Celebration, The Temporary World, Unfolding of Love, Harvest Time, and All Wars Are the Same War.

Underwear keeps dark secrets.You can learn much from a discarded pair.When hope springs eternal, underwear collapses.There is a spring in the step.Underwear reveals suggestions of light.-- What Underwear Does When No One is Looking

Viewing nature as a spiritual discipline requires focus, quiet intention, listening for the smallest noises, and watching how change happens. This collection of poems is also shaped by the techniques of Impressionism-light and shadow, the momentary, how no two moments are the same, and where light is forever chasing light. Let these poems guide you as you enter the world. Let them slow you down and focus your attention.

Animals, birds, nature, love and the human essence interfacing with it and each other. A fine read by a very established writer. This book is divided into four sections all of which are filled with a rich tapestry of words carefully woven into heart matter by the author.

Martin Willitts Jr.'s new book, Rain Followed Me Home, is filled to the brim with imagery that encourages us to ponder our relationship with the natural world. The opening poem, Disquieting, reminds us that although we are often caught in difficult, transitory moments, mindfulness is still possible. Each sonnet demonstrates a surreality of line that is juxtaposed with careful attention to detail, rewarding the reader with a deep emotional resonance. That resonance holds hands with the rain that sits at the center of this collection's heart. The beautiful, luminous last poem closes the collection with a reminder that "There is much to love in this world."-Christine Klocek-Lim, editor of Autumn Sky Poetry DAILY and author of Dark Matter.

Winner of the 2016 Turtle Island Quarterly Editor's Choice Chapbook Award.According to Jared Smith, "These tightly coiled lyric poems are born of the earth, and of the interface between observation, intellect, faith, and logic. They are of childhood and old age, of butterflies and songbirds and turtles, and of the mountains and grasses...all those things that are ignited and illumined by the sun. But this is not a gentle sun. It is a sun made jagged and sharp, that shatters against darkness. It turns the leaves of summer into dust and it drags life down into the darkness that shrouds it. Yet as Martin's vision shows, even in carrion there is life and light coming forth from that darkness that thrives on it. And even as the last light drops from our fingers, that light is a seed that peers over the horizon for all that will follow. This is a profound book of hope and belief in those things that are bigger than we know of."

"Not Only the Extraordinary are Entering the Dream World" has such temporary beauty, that if you blink, you might miss the brief moment. You find yourself speechless. You wonder if you are in a dream world or if you imagined the moment. These poems want you to notice the world, whether it is camping in parks or climbing mountains ("the dizzy tightness of the heart"), or white-water rapids. This world is at risk with climate change with heat extremes, water levels lowering, hurricanes, de-forestation, how we are interconnected like the silk worms to the survival of certain trees. Also, love is fragile and can be at risk. We can discover different ways to see love in these poems, often centered in nature. "Centeredness" and "meditative" are good adjectives for these poems. Each poem toward the end become quieter and quieter, until the last poem which takes the reader out of this world into another reality, "all love reaches a certain velocity."

All Wars Are the Same War portrays the effects of war on the soldiers, the civilians caught in between, and the land. This collection of poems is divided into three sections. The first focuses on wars in the past up until the Iraq war, including the Civil War, both world wars, and the Russian Revolution from different viewpoints. The second section is about the author's own involvement in Vietnam as a field medic for the pacifist Quaker organization, American Friends Service Committee, which portrays the insanity of war like the novel, Mash. The third section is about his return, wounded, during the Anti-War movement and how vets were mistreated when they returned. The book ends with trying to resolve PTSD issues. It is a homecoming for the wounded and survivors, often seen from the victims' viewpoint. As the title says, all wars are the same war, and war seems endless.

With the attention of a field botanist, Ethereal Flowers explores healing plants, plants in mythology, plants that inspired van Gogh paintings, plants that are poisonous, and plants discovered by Lewis and Clark. By honoring plants and trees, we honor the source of life, and we acknowledge that we are mutually connected, that the survival of one impacts the other. Poet Martin Willitts Jr. gets on his hands and knees to notice the detail of petals, pistils, leaf formation, lateral and bilateral stems, the smell of earth, the bees shuttling in the garden, unearthing a deeper meaning to plants, while planting them firmly in imagination.

The thirty-six woodblock prints that were the inspiration for this collection of writings were made by Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849). The pieces show different views of Mount Fuji from various waystations where people would go to look at the beautiful mountain. The writings in this book are haibun, a literary form originating in Japan that combines prose-autobiography, diary entries, essay, or short story-and poetry-often haiku. Hokusai was in his seventies when he produced the Mount Fuji series; the author, Martin Willitts Jr., was seventy years old when he began studying the prints, attempting to merge himself with Hokusai.