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In his latest collection of forty-one new poems, Break Out, poet Eric Greinke demonstrates his comfort with the wide variety of poetic modalities and divergent compositional approaches for which he is known. Thematically, the collection is structured to maximize a readers mental flexibility and emotional empathy through alternative perspectives presented in the poems. The dominant theme of the book is the need of all sentient beings to escape from the many kinds of chains and prisons that capture them. Hailed by Charles Reznikoff as the best poet of his generation, at 72 years old Greinke continues to write poems that evoke our common human experiences in search of universal truths. The first, middle, and last poems (In Tree Light, Love Match, and From Mirror To You) are surrealistic lyric poems inspired respectively by French poets Yves Bonnefoy, Andre Breton and Claire Malroux. A series of couplet-based, ghazal-like, free-associative responses to the morning news on television (i.e. Monkey Time, Origins of Alchemy, and Break Out) are interwoven with poems written from the perspective of fish, birds and animals (i.e. Hunger, Bluegill Apocalypse, Waves, The Unseen, Trash) placed amid a core of topical objectivistic docu-poems inspired by Associated Press articles that address human rights in the context of social problems, such as human trafficking (i.e. Little Doll, The Trap, The Price), homelessness (i.e. The Cold, Locked Out), road rage (On The Road), racism (The Word), gang violence (The Dead), sexual abuse (The Secret), drug addiction (Unforgiven), sanctuary for illegal immigrants (Standing Room Only), mass shootings (No Cover) and hunger (Hunger Everywhere). Throw in a few surprises, (i.e. an acrostic imitation of Apollinire or the sardonic social cultural observations of Intensities In Ten Cities), and you have poetry that takes you for a ride, both inside and out.
