The Art of Writing and others by George Held. (Finishing Line Press., 33 pgs.) $12.00

From the first poem in this collection, George Held, The Art of Writing and others, engaged me. In "On a Lock of Hair", Mr. Held deftly illustrates a relic of one of America's better known late nineteenth-century poets with the line 'and soft as the hairs of a milkweed seed.'

The poet takes the reader through a series of well considered themes that includes humorous twists on passages from Shakespeare and Sharon Olds, as well as interesting takes on painters van Gogh, Alice Neel, and others. Mr. Held closes the collection with a well executed haiku, and a sonnet titled, "Death, Be Proud (After John Donne)."

Only two things about this collection disappointed me: I wish the collection had been longer, and I was somewhat disappointed with the villanelles in the collection. While I understand him taking some license with the strict form of the villanelle, I was taken aback by the lack of imagination in the end-rhymes of these two poems given his obvious poetic gifts overall.

Despite that, from the poems to the cover art and choice of papers, the attention given to the presentation of this chapbook is clear. I know I will be finding myself picking up The Art of Writing and Others often.

— reviewed by B.W. Brenner