Forbidden City

from 'Mount Fuji'A draughtsman s draughtsman, Hokusai at 70thought he d begun to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, of the wayplants grow, hoped that by 90 he d havepenetrated to their essential nature. And more, by 100, I will have reached the stagewhere every dot, every mark I make will bealive. You always loved that resolve, you d repeat joyfully Hokusai s utterance of faithin work s possibilities, its reward, that,at 130, he d perhaps have learned to draw. Gail Mazur s poems in Forbidden City build an engaging meditative structure upon the elements of mortality and art, eloquently contemplating the relationship of art and life and the dynamic possibilities of each in combination. At the collection s heart is the poet s long marriage to the artist Michael Mazur (1935 2009). A fascinating range of tone infuses the book grieving, but clear-eyed rather than lugubrious, sometimes whimsical, even comical, and often exuberant. The note of pleasure, as in an old tradition enriched by transience, runs through the work, even in the final poem, Grief, where our ravenous hold on the world is a powerful central element.