Without Dragons Even the Emperor Would Be Lonely: Ensos, Parables & Koans

The hurricane’s eye of feeling, / whirl inside whirl, world / within world in John High’s / lush color incantations / hang like moons over the road / of his handwritten words / and their moments of attention / come alive within us as though / we were all nested in each other.

-Forrest Gander, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry and author of Be With (New Directions)

An emptiness moving into presence. And vice versa. A figuration turning into abstraction. And vice versa. Methodically a deliberation or spontaneity? The artistic enterprise here embraces the mutual convulsion of words and images/symbols. I sense a call to dream deeply while awake. I feel a call to defy the fetters of logic/reason. Both darkening and radiant, there is radical fruition in the probing of depths in this confluence of words and colors. On an elemental level, John High explores the intersection of upheaval and serenity. This is a beautiful book for our perilous time and beyond. It makes me jump for joy.

-Uche Nduka, author of Facing You (City Lights)