Mineral Whisper by Z.G. Tomaszewski

“In one of my many favorite lines in Mineral Whisper, Z.G. Tomaszewski, writes: “O consider me clean/if I rise out of a marsh swamp-scented/…..carrying the warm musk/of Earth’s dark blood/under my boots.” And, indeed, in these fine poems, the poet has his feet in the mud and muck of the earth, specifically the earth of Ireland, even while his body is “braille to the wind.” Rambling through Ireland, the poet meets and writes of fishermen, pub-men, fellow travelers on a bus, even Seamus Heaney, himself, learning from them and passing on the lessons to the reader. Just so, he also writes of things of the spirit: birds, fields, clouds, the seasons become transcendent. Out of silence, the poet struggles “to make music here–plucking order out of chaos.”  I loved this book for its luscious language and images, its music, its lessons, and its enchantments.”

— Patricia Fargnoli, author of Winter, Then Something, and Duties of the Spirit

“One of the many voices in Z.G. Tomaszewski’s Mineral Whisper proclaims, “Me? I’ll build a raft of bones with a sail of scales. I’ll call upon the mackerel to keep me afloat.” And this magical book not only praises the buoyancy of the human spirit, but offers up a host of creatures, including drunken fishermen, black-crowned night herons, even mermaids, all of them working the sea, making a beautiful kind of music from the wind and the waves.”

— Todd Davis, author of Winterkill and In the Kingdom of the Ditch

“‘Rock-lover, loner, sky-sentry,’ the central consciousness of this rich collection proves ever capable of wonder, and the poet adept at enacting, down to the prosodically-molecular level, that rare state of being so vital to our species’ survival.  Look up, they tell us: the sky is ‘streaked by the ’emerald of asteroids’ while at our feet the ‘tides spark as they slap the shore.’  Surrender to the surround of these poems.”

— Chris Dombrowski, author or Body of Water, Earth Again, and By Cold Water

“Z.G. Tomaszewski continues to prowl the western parishes of language, image, nature and place.  Mineral Whisper is a rich haul from the coast road, the far field, the stone wall, the undulant townland whence the wind-hovering glimpse of land and air and sea give way to peninsulas we must travel to their denouement.  Bravo!”

— Thomas Lynch, author of The Undertaking, Walking Papers, and Booking Passage

“In Mineral Whisper, poet Z.G. Tomaszewski, traveler with “Earth’s dark blood” under his boots, tunes his ears and eyes to the West Ireland landscape, to its fishermen and local stories, to its sky and birds, its fields and stone walls—and in so doing, cups his hands and gathers for us the world within and beyond the living world, the universe within the body. With wrought language, these poems, these acts of great attention, translate all the whispers of stone and sand and sea, reminding us, as great poets do, that every far away is right before our eyes.”

— Robert Fanning, author of Our Sudden Museum, The Seed Thieves and American Prophet

Rating: ***** [5 of 5 Stars!]