Island on the Wind-Breathed Edge of the Sea

Suffused with light and air, the poems have the clarity of great photography, the feel of wind in the hair, the hushed compassion for everything and everyone seen and heard. There is a rich exuberance underlying all impressions, but not exploited at the expense of deep feelings. There is a subtle basic bass line supporting the sparkling right hand figures of Lee's style--an unerring ear matched to an intensity of vision, and both in the service of heart, mind and soul. More and more, I'm impressed by Lee's wish to communicate in artistic language without compromise--by his steely discipline as he balances the richest of language with spiritual insight, avoiding the cheap plays of irony, frippery vulgarity that tarnishes so much of "People's Poetry." This is subtly conveyed by his kind shading of metaphor with "like'' since similes are less dazzling and therefore more sympathetic to the nerves of the common reader as he sublimely manipulates emotions with all the artistry of the poet aligned with the gravitas of the image. John B. Lee is "the" People's Poet with the hidden agenda of a spiritual adviser, a magician of language whose poems often conclude with an amazing transcendence of intellect confronted by the inexpressible and surrendering to it in a skyrocket of wild imagery and pure poetry. I admire the unselfconscious pride with which Lee propagates his love of literature--its power and its glory--around his town and around the world--an evangelist of truth and beauty. To read Lee's work is to believe in them for the first time all over again. God bless him. by George Whipple