By Jess Weible, author of Dead Letters: Delivering Unopened Mail from a Pennsylvania Ghost Town 

Originally featured in the Mirror as part of the Books from the Pennsylvania Wilds column.

This Crazy Devotion by Philip Terman

Philip Terman is a poet and Professor of English at Clarion University. His sixth book, This Crazy Devotion, is a masterful collection of poems which recollect everyday experiences in the poet’s life, then dive deeper into the moment of that recollection to explore and illuminate the pain, joy, wisdom, and beauty of each experience. 

Terman references Walt Whitman in his dedication and it’s evident that Whitman’s free verse style influences his poetry with an emphasis on detail from real life, yet at the same time transcendent or spiritual themes prevail in each poem. 

The first part of the book is called Dreams of Poverty and Miracles. In this section the poem “Dear Li Po” repeatedly asks the reader to “remember” along with the poet, a memory we could not have possibly shared, yet still has the ability to draw us in to this moment from the past, asking, “Li Po, wherever you are now, I want to know if you can still hear/ the sky’s music before anyone else.” 

The next part, Of Longing and Chutzpah includes several poems about the poet’s mother, again honing in on specific memories, rich with detail. One poem in particular, “My Mother’s Poems,” recalls lines that the poet’s mother once wrote, “Homespun as they were/she’d recite her poems anywhere/to anyone.” 

The third part of the book, Devotees, gives moving accounts of people in the poet’s life, such as the poem “Bird at the Open Window,” which describes a kind-spirited neighbor, “alone in her house, which she made our house/bird at the open window–”

Garden Chronicle is the final part of the book which contains a series of poems contemplating the poet’s observations as the seasons change outside in his garden, strung together to meditate on the bittersweet transitions from seedling to flowering to withering. 

The garden says: change,
It continues: become spectacular
Obey the wind’s command,
then turn into something else.

This Crazy Devotion is available through Broadstone Books and copies are now for sale at Artfunkle in Clarion.