Structures (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9798888384435)

Barry Vitcov's second collection of poems give old and established poetic forms a fresh voice, at times playful, with his standard poodle making several appearances, but in other poems soberly metaphoric, as in the Shakespearean-style sonnet Our Ukraine. His casual, conversational language takes any of the expected stiffness out of the formal structures; rhyme and meter are unforced, and repeated lines in the villanelles and triolets read as emphasis, not redundancy, like the language of an earnest speaker. The collection is cleverly organized as well-notice the haibun titled One Sentence Poem preceding the section of one-sentence poems, and the tightly constructed and humorous triolet, Plural of Haiku, leading into the final section, a generous plurality of haiku. Structures explores love, loss, and romance with tenderness and touches of irony.