Overview

The title Bagatelles captures the light spirit of the brief poems, some with playful nuances and others more penetrating. From the French, the word suggests a trifle, even a game, and composers Ludwig von Beethoven and Gerald Finzi have written short classical pieces, often just a minute or two in length. In these traditions, Thomas Bonner, Jr.'s poems touch on daily life, places and customs, troublesome issues, visual moments, and questions of self. Like the musical bagatelles, these poems avoid pretention and aim toward a joy of life.

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9781665305280

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""Tom Bonner's poems might appear small on the surface, but all of life is in them. A search for the right button becomes a meditation on mortality. A boy who slams the screen door on his way outside reveals his mother's despair over a future without him. Bonner is a master at finding beauty and meaning in daily rituals that most of us fail to notice. He is clever and untroubled one moment, mysterious and profound the next. The world he gives us is carefully arranged with color and hard images and people we have never met but still recognize. Taken individually, these poems celebrate everything from how an egret walks to what a maple leaf has to say. Taken as a whole, they tell the story of a journey from beginning to end. Bagatelles is a dazzling collection."" -John Ed Bradley, Author of It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium ""The title of this collection suggests that the poems it contains are mere trifles, but if so, this is misplaced modesty on Bonner's part. The shorter poems have the same quiet wisdom of haiku, while the longer ones suggest the contemplative observations of a writer who loves the nature he experiences during his daily rambles along the banks of the Mississippi near his home. These wonderfully wrought verses are anything but 'trifles'."" -Robert Skinner, Author of The Righteous Cut Bagatelles by Tom Bonner reveals the significance of a thimble filled with brook water and desire. We follow the Emma-Muse into the Mississippi, opened gates, through falling levees. We leave the Somme into a garden, marble statue, still life of green and black olives, chameleon ready to strike. We might hitchhike on the Jefferson Highway paring our steps into the infinite heavenly numbers with the old school slide rule, Flanders' field, boy soldiers with broomstick rifles, a love's blue blazer, yellow tie, and Hawthorne's rose. Bonner's poems capture such things. There are love poems. There are subtle yet compelling glimpses of racism, invisible thorns of hate. These are watercolors drawn by the palette of a poet's keen eye, ear, and heart. We sit with Bonner drinking in the Vieux Carré, at ease, as he reads his poems. We find ourselves on a fine thread of language, a canvas of images and human colors. These are playlets of a Third Act. The rare ""wild place"" pastoral. We hold a ""crumpled fedora"" and walk, stage left, into a better world. -Charles Fort, Author of Immortelles: Poems

Tom Bonner's poems might appear small on the surface, but all of life is in them. A search for the right button becomes a meditation on mortality. A boy who slams the screen door on his way outside reveals his mother's despair over a future without him. Bonner is a master at finding beauty and meaning in daily rituals that most of us fail to notice. He is clever and untroubled one moment, mysterious and profound the next. The world he gives us is carefully arranged with color and hard images and people we have never met but still recognize. Taken individually, these poems celebrate everything from how an egret walks to what a maple leaf has to say. Taken as a whole, they tell the story of a journey from beginning to end. Bagatelles is a dazzling collection. -John Ed Bradley, Author of It Never Rains in Tiger Stadium The title of this collection suggests that the poems it contains are mere trifles, but if so, this is misplaced modesty on Bonner's part. The shorter poems have the same quiet wisdom of haiku, while the longer ones suggest the contemplative observations of a writer who loves the nature he experiences during his daily rambles along the banks of the Mississippi near his home. These wonderfully wrought verses are anything but 'trifles'. -Robert Skinner, Author of The Righteous Cut Bagatelles by Tom Bonner reveals the significance of a thimble filled with brook water and desire. We follow the Emma-Muse into the Mississippi, opened gates, through falling levees. We leave the Somme into a garden, marble statue, still life of green and black olives, chameleon ready to strike. We might hitchhike on the Jefferson Highway paring our steps into the infinite heavenly numbers with the old school slide rule, Flanders' field, boy soldiers with broomstick rifles, a love's blue blazer, yellow tie, and Hawthorne's rose. Bonner's poems capture such things. There are love poems. There are subtle yet compelling glimpses of racism, invisible thorns of hate. These are watercolors drawn by the palette of a poet's keen eye, ear, and heart. We sit with Bonner drinking in the Vieux Carre, at ease, as he reads his poems. We find ourselves on a fine thread of language, a canvas of images and human colors. These are playlets of a Third Act. The rare wild place pastoral. We hold a crumpled fedora and walk, stage left, into a better world. -Charles Fort, Author of Immortelles: Poems

Author Information

Thomas Bonner, Jr's most recent book is Parterre: New and Collected Poetry and Prose. Professor Emeritus at Xavier University of Louisiana, he is a native New Orleanian and frequent traveler to New Mexico.

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