The Alabama Writers’ Forum
The Alabama Writers’ Forum, a partnership program of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, works to cultivate our state’s literary culture. We do that through supporting writers at all stages. We encourage our young writers to find their creative voice through the Father Goose Poetry Festival for Kids!–and through our Alabama High School Literary Arts Awards. We support the work of our state’s literary community through our Alabama Authors Directory, First Draft magazine, and other programming and opportunities for writers across the state. And we celebrate our state’s rich literary legacy through the Alabama Writers Hall of Fame. We are, above all, a community of writers united by our desire to advance the literary arts in Alabama. If that describes you — join us! There are many ways to get involved.
As We Vanish From Public View
As We Vanish from Public View By Hank Lazer 7 Points Press, 2024 Paper: $18 Genre: Poetry Reviewed by Ken Autrey Hank Lazer, one of the most prolific Alabama writers, has published 35 volumes of poetry and several essay collections. His most recent book, As We Vanish from Public View, contains sixty untitled poems, each dated diary-like and sometimes appended by the location in which it was written. This documentation of time and place seems particularly apt for a collection such as this, in which the spare poems, usually with short lines surrounded by ample space, call us to savor them meditatively, ourselves temporarily “vanishing from public view” as we do so. These elemental poems often take us into the natural world and challenge us to ponder connections among apparently dissimilar images: dying, the desert, a Buddha statue, a pine tree, and the act of breathing. They urge us to empty ourselves in favor of our surroundings. Here is one poem, quoted in full: oh so this is what I see [...]
