A Split Second of Light

A Split Sec­ond of Light is that brief moment when (as the poet writes in an early poem) “A pin­hole of light appears through the clouds” and what is beheld is cap­tured for­ever, whether by paints on can­vas, pho­tographs in albums or words on paper. Stew­art Flor­sheim, award win­ning San Fran­cisco Bay Area poet, once again dis­plays his tal­ent for rec­og­niz­ing that exact moment, from clouds into clarity.

Because many of these poems are remem­brances from early child­hood, ado­les­cence and adult­hood, the book becomes more than a col­lec­tion, and with Florsheim’s strength of see­ing the words within a pic­ture, the poems beg to be read in almost one sit­ting. The book is divided into three seam­less sec­tions, each set apart with a pho­to­graph by Leon Boren­zstein, inter­na­tion­ally renowned pho­tog­ra­pher and also a Bay Area res­i­dent. Each pho­to­graph is accom­pa­nied by a quote, one from Deuteron­omy, Shake­speare and Woolf.

It is in an early poem, “Mother’s Favorite Draw­ing,” that the poet tells us flat out what the book will hold for the reader:

I am with her when she sees the draw­ing
at the gift shop after I drag her through the Met –

The poems will be about fam­ily and pic­tures and stories:

It’s the Käthe Koll­witz of a woman clutch­ing
her child—my mother inter­ro­gat­ing the child’s eyes

And more than that, by the end of this poem the reader knows exactly how impor­tant pic­tures, on a wall or on a page, can be:

Mother wants to hang it over her bed in a spot
framed now by the shadow of the fire escape,

the steps and lad­der imposed over mother and child
brac­ing them for­ever in flight.

Light, both its source and its effect, is felt through­out the book as in these lines from “Exposed”: Next door our neigh­bors are singing in/​Hebrew, “Grace after Meals”: the fog lifts,/the stars assem­ble in a sin­gle word—Amen. Read­ers will rec­og­nize Vermeer’s paint­ing of “A Lady Writ­ing,” but will see it again almost for the first time: …as if to say she’ll accept/​the pearls lying on the table:/from every cor­ner of her eyes, yes, yes,/her feather pen about to float/​out of her hand, into the source of light./

Flor­sheim is a poet of depth and clar­ity, a poet who wastes noth­ing in words drawn from his heart and enriched by his Jew­ish cul­ture. These poems cap­ture and enlarge our under­stand­ing of A Split Sec­ond of Light.

Avail­able at Ama​zon​.com | A SPLIT SECOND OF LIGHT