Drawing its title from William Blake''s hymn of praise to sexual love (
Visions of the Daughters of Albion), this little book inscribes the word "love" in 22 of its 33 poems. They celebrate delights of being in a body. But not just sex-love of God, of friends, parents, children, pets, poems, even food, all are savored. I am struck, as well, by this poet''s range of thought, feeling, and allusion: Li Po to Garcia Lorca, May Swenson, Mary Oliver and Richard Dawkins, to Blake, the Bible, and Shakespeare (in the delightful ballad "If Will Hath a Will, Anne Hathaway"). Most of all, I am haunted by the opening piece, words of love aborted mid-sentence by death.
Helms has a way of making complex ideas accessible. His poems enhance and deepen our intellectual as well as sensual pleasures. Read them slowly ("mouth these verses, mumble them, suck their juice," he suggests); they will enrich you.
-Joanna Dales
Fifty years ago, John Stallworthy compiled The Peng
