Break the Mirror by Nanao Sakaki

Abstract

392 Western American Literature Not to be overlooked are the echoes of the poet’s wide reading and work in some traditional forms like “The Ballad of the Sea Witch” and “A Hybrid Villanelle on a Line by Li Po.” Sharing in the dilemma of all contemporary poets, the perpetual challenge of transforming his private world of feelings and insights into the larger world of shared communication, Witherup succeeds far more than he misses the mark, and when he hits it, the “orange fire” indeed shines forth as in “Run­ ning”: “My eyes inhale the purple flowers / and swish them around in the skull. / an afternoon cocktail. / Water and fire the petals, / water and fire the heart.” CHARLES H. DAUGHADAY Murray State University Break the Mirror. By Nanao Sakaki. (San Francisco: North Point, 1987. 126 pages, $9.95.) Imagine yourself looking up a classic U-shaped alpine valley toward the cirque and the high ridges at the head of it. There is a small stream stair­ stepping down toward you, left to right, right to left; it drops level to level, over clean granite, slides through a slow, grassy place; the water is clear, clear, clear. Standing here, looking at the little creek, you feel yourself to be touching the real freshness, the real wildness—the world of source. No need to do anything but laugh and enjoy it. It’s a gift: “Hold your palms open always!” Nanao Sakaki writes. Some of the poems in Break the Mirror have a surrealistic touch, as if the little stream reversed itself and headed back toward the far ridges. But somehow your eye travels with it quite easily, and you get a bigger picture. The world is not solved in these poems, it is regarded as being alive and in motion. “Tomorrow’s wind could be / North, south, east or west.” Nanao Sakaki writes as if he doesn’t just go to the wild realm on vacation, but in some sense dwells there, in touch. His poetic world seems to be the same as his daily-life world, It is, as the title of one of his poems has it, “Just Enough” : Soil for legs Axe for hands Flower for eyes Bird for ears Mushroom for nose Smile for mouth Songs for lungs Sweat for skin Wind for mind THOMAS J. LYON Utah State University ...