Swimming the Mirror by Brad Buchanan. (Roan Press., 70 pgs.) $12.00

Swimming the Mirror is Brad Buchanan's second collection and the first from Roan Press — a small press recently started by Mr. Buchanan and his wife.

I must admit that I was a little surprised that I enjoyed the collection so much. Not that Brad Buchanan isn't a good poet, but considering the subject matter, I considered that my reading experience might well be akin to being forced to watch a slideshow of someone's family vacation in a strangers basement. That's because poems parents write about their own parenthood tend to be too cloying and precious, too self-indulgent with no space for the reader to enter. In these poems inspired by parenthood and early childhood, Brad Buchanan rises above the usual cliches of fatherhood and gets to the meat of the experience:

"At last their movements made sense; they are gathered,
tense, on the brink of pleasure, the future
wriggling free from them both, and forever."

The book is collected in four parts, each dealing with a different part of the journey. Part one, deals with that angst-filled time between a child's conception and birth. Part two with infancy and parts three and four with toddlerhood and early childhood. I was blown-away by many of Mr. Buchanan's images and how he was able to juxtapose the viewpoint of the father with that of the young daughter, imbuing the experience with insight and empathy.

I am pleased to report that this is a fine debut from this new publisher and bodes well for it's future endeavors.

— reviewed by JCE