Reviewed by Carolyn Howard-Johnson, MyShelf.Com
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Painting Pictures of the Mind

A Gift from Poet to Reader,
Giver to Receiver,

For me, yoga is about images. So is this small book of poetry and art called "The Breathing Field. The poetry is by Wyatt Townley and Eric Dinyer, is the artist.

"Slide under the scars where meteors dug their graves in us a millennia ago," it advises. And then we do. As we read, we discard the accoutrements that we no longer need, and breathe life. I suspect that this will be so even for those who do not know yoga for the images are accessible, beautiful and touching.

Although I know yoga, I do not think that one must know it to imbibe. Poetry is meant to reach out. This poetry may convert some to drinking of yoga's serenity; others may be touched only in the moment. That is, after all, what poetry and yoga are about-the moment.

Townley's images are simple, beautiful and understandable. "Here, inside the chest," he says, "a tiny fear is folded neatly like a sweater." I've always ascribed to the theory that poetry should be close kin to our every day speech. It seems Townley might feel the same way.

Unfortunately, I can hardly impart a sense of the images by Eric Dinyer. They are exquisite. They feel like painted photographs, remind me of those patterns one sees behind one's eyelids, deep within the realm of ourselves where reality and soul reside.

What a lovely gift this small book has given to me. What a lovely gift it would make for anyone else.

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Carolyn Howard-Johnson is the author of "This is the Place" and "Harkening: A Collection of Stories Remembered"