In this collection we note, we travel, and we envelop time, nature, body, Greek deities, leaders of resistance, such as John Lewis; all transcend into each other, and leap into multi-consciousness. Interdependence, humanity, the sacred and profane, the ancient and contemporary forge into Oneness. The poems address each one of us, the voice gyrates through self, life and death. We turn a page from the Torah, we meditate at the heights of Machu Picchu. In spectral mirrors we transfigure our gender and identify. We too are sacred; we too are aghast, peering at the suffocation of George Floyd. There is birth, seed and re-birth, there is woman-flight "to the sky" as she transforms herself. Every line calls on us to traverse passages into another state of being below, above, and within nature and the celestial. Time, culture, history, gender, mythology and day-to-day existence unfurl their moment in notes, rhymes, and various layers of reality and consciousness. This book offers what is most needed: a deep, personal and challenging journey into Humanity and its visions, lives, questions, and wonders. An incredible accomplishment, a visionary span, a warm-hearted dedication to all life. -Juan Felipe Herrera, United States Poet Laureate emeritus
O Hope! The Poet can create our world again. Phyllis Meshulam breaks apart the old memes / archetypes / stories and re-tells them. And we-her readers and listeners-can make our lives on this earth anew.
-Maxine Hong Kingston, author of The Woman Warrior
When inherited foundational stories prove to be inadequate, it is time for the artist to create new ones that will speak more clearly to our experience. In (Re)Creations, Phyllis Meshulam takes up this essential task. Her poems measure the damage done by cultural myths of patriarchal hierarchy, of warfare and conquest, of human dominance over nature. Her poems, however, also celebrate and affirm the enduring human capacity for creating new ways of thinking, feeling, and being. Brimming with empathic imagination and shaped with artistic precision, Meshulam's poetry is, as she says of a tropical butterfly's blue wings, "mysteriously lit from within."
-Fred Marchant, author of Said Not Said
