Any poet knows that to write a sonnet, besides the muse, a good knowledge of the subject must be present. Furthermore, during the life of a poet, the ability to write just one sonnet is an achievement by itself, but writing over fifty sonnets and displaying them in a book... is an accomplishment, and a very distinguished job to be proud of. This is the case of A Tree and Gone. Each page of the book resembles poetry, pure artistry the way it used to be. Good taste, rhyme, and metrics... are there:
Herds, flocks, wildflowers, startled on a knoll
Once, here, somewhere- the heart, maybe, the soul.
The poet, Terry Culleton, very tactfully exhibits a degree of wisdom and humor in his verses.
A peacock butterfly unfolds on air
and glides a yard or two, then re-alights
atop a primrose bell to bristle there
and fold back in and think about its flights...
Also, a sense of philosophy and life’s experiences adorned the stanzas of each sonnet.
The counterpoint that sounds itself in me
just now, I guess, is yes, it’s almost night-
But almost isn’t all: there is still some light.
Terry Culleton is a modern sonneteer, who makes us believe in the magic of traditional poetry. Definitely, A Tree and Gone is a fine job, a treasure with original sonnets found in a fine book; It is a breath of fresh air for any poetry lover to enjoy. The reader of this traditional form of poetry will not be disappointed at all.
Emiliano Martín, Spanish-born and longtime resident of Bucks County, PA., is the founder and former director of Philadelphia Poetry Forum and past president of the Latin American Guild for the Arts. Currently and since 2018, he is president of Pennsylvania Poetry Society. He has authored over a dozen titles of poetry (and prose), besides having been published in Mad Poets Review, Philadelphia Poets, The Lite Fuuse, S.V. Journal, US 1, The Swarthmorean, and other Spanish language publications in Spain, such as Mizares and Marejadas. He is the author of Footprints of Spain in Philadelphia (2020), and his latest book of poems is Caught Between Layers.