The Art of Restoration

These are private, visceral poems in which Bart White hands over to the reader, in forthright language throughout the volume, the intricacies of life's vicissitudes. Whether it's in nature, human relationships, or politics, the poet invokes this tactile language as a medium to bring into focus solutions to the complexities revealed. -Robert Gibbons, author of Spent Some Time with Lorca in New York Near to him in his familial world of marriage and children, or from other current places of insane benighted repression and murder, or even from 2000 years ago when the poet manages to translate the touching Latin words on a five-year-old child's sarcophagus, in The Art of Restoration we're always within an empathetic sensibility that may bring us to tears. I found myself caught up in Bart White's austere but still romantic poems. He is brutally honest with himself as he probes our human condition, realizes-makes real for himself-the often ironic beauty of nature, and, in William Stafford's words, places his feet with care in such a world. Here is a poet with a big heart & a brain singed by experience. This poet wants our company, and in many ways, we need his.-William Heyen, author of Nature: New & Selected Poems 1970-2020 Bart White's The Art of Restoration takes a close look at generosity. Through his lens of what is most personal, in both public and private circumstances, we come to an understanding of what is universal in his lyric-narrative poems. We recognize our own lives in his hopes and fears as we experience first-hand the ways in which he expresses his faith, living day to day, trying to make sense of the unexpected crises that disturb his desire for happiness. What is the cost of this worldly weight? How does he carry us along in these poems that confront us-speaking to what we fear most-loss of love, of loved ones, of our precious lives? "Is the road clear" becomes a metaphor of finding one's self. Yet, what is striking is how that road is cleared in both physical and spiritual landscapes. Generosity isn't what you think it is- it's lonesome work- it requires us to heal from the inside out. And, when it truly works, it offers happiness to many, not just a few chosen ones.-M.J. Iuppa, author of The Weight of Air and Rock, Paper, Scissors