Judy Hogan recommends The Jogger by the Sea, by Charles Edward Eaton (Cornwall Books, 91 pp., $19.95)
Chapel Hill’s Charles Edward Eaton locks his truths so consummately into metaphors that we must live with them before they release their jewels. The central question of The Jogger by the Sea is: Can the poet keep jogging along the beach even though he feels not far ahead the tragic loss, not of his art, for that is “caught in the colander,” but of himself as jewel-maker? You can devote yourself to art, even be confident that your poems will last, and still feel your grief: “His limber spine was like a golden stalk,/And the great foot was coming down on it.” But, “You must pull out the arrow and then the thorn/If you want your dreams to flourish and expand … ” “It is this desire to break through, burnish,/which fuels the spirit lamp in the heart … /Like Achilles upside down, the jogger/Must blink the coming fear of sunless days.” 
Judy Hogan, a poet and writer living in Moncure, teaches creative writing in the Triangle.
