Kintsugi

Author: Thomas Meyer

Publisher: Flood Editions (2011)

In Kintsugi, Thomas Meyer has written an intimate elegy for his partner of nearly four decades. As Robert Kelly observes in his foreword, this is "a text written in and through the very death it mourned." Kintsugi is a Japanese word meaning "golden joinery," and it describes the practice of repairing pottery with gold lacquer. As Kelly suggests, "the very rupture is what is highlighted": Meyer's presence to the loss, in the midst of daily life and its attendant concerns, serves as "the golden line that holds all this together." Likewise, his supple poetic line joins formal lament with the quiet spontaneity of thinking. The result is poetry of deep grief and wonder: "Walk into a room. / Not know where I am. / Once it was Love / had me so distracted. / Now it's Death."