Messing Around with Words

Whether inspired by contempt or by love, whether depressed by lack of clarity or being startled by what was clear, whether looking at the poverty in Africa or at rusting shells of burned-out tanks, whether puzzled by or angry at life, or both – Steve Honig’s poetry captures emotional power through a lens of sardonic detail. It is not easy to describe a book of poetry with no theme. It is, at core, focused perceptions triggered by images, events and frustrations. Poems range from sexuality and self-doubt to rage at homo sapiens generally. A conversation with Frank Sinatra segues into a walk in a hillside cemetery while the poet’s mother meanders among the tombstones. Perhaps notably, the longest poem is not a poem at all, but a review of the writings of an imaginary poet laureate, whose intellectual rise and inevitable fall to age chronicle a life spent in the pain of putting it all on paper. Containing poems both in rhymed format and free verse, this book taps the vulnerability we all feel—and then brings a smile of recognition.