Take Care
Mark Danowsky
Moon Tide Press
$15.00
You can purchase your copy here.
Reviewed by Sean Hanrahan
Some poets seem to breathe and imbibe poetry, creating a charged atom comprised of craft and community, the Philadelphia area is honored to have such a poet in their midst, Mark Danowsky. Dear gentle reader*, you may know him as the founder and editor of One Art. You may have read one of his insightful Substacks or encountered one of his poems in a journal. He also has a new compassionate and lyrical collection titled Take Care, so you can drink deeply from this particular and profound well.
If I had to sum up Danowsky’s work in one word, I would use succinct. In his succinctness, however, there is the lyricism I mentioned in the previous paragraph. A poem that displays this, at first glance perhaps, contradictory status is “Average.”
We start off in the abstract, the philosophical, the quotidian, but Danowsky knows how to take the reader on a brief, yet heart-altering, journey.
I rub my index finder over the edge
of my thumbnail—a habit I picked up
from watching a lowland gorilla at the zoo
who died on the operating table last year.
Showing his talent for compassion, he ruminates how he “misses that gorilla” and celebrates the majestic animal’s life by repeating the same movement. This image is a thrilling example of empathy in a world in which it seems dry. In its way, this poem is quietly revolutionary.
His compassion also shines through in the haiku-like (haiku-esque?) “Magnetism.”
Drawn
To others
In Pain
Moth
Icarus-like
To flame.
Another poem that struck me in Take Care is “The Spread.” This poem has a sense of the current apocalyptic malaise that appears to drip from the atmosphere. In this poem, Danowsky’s pitch-perfect on soars (a deliberate, yet apt, choice so as not to mix my metaphors here):
Through breaks in clouds
Tiny dots
Us going about our lives
Post-disaster
Tiny dots
Farther away
The disaster here is left deliberately vague. It could be any and every disaster, couldn’t it? This poem will be eternally prophetic, simple, propulsive, and powerful.
The last poem I will include in this review is the wryly humorous, “Subconscious Defense.” His wit is apparent in the lines:
You fake laugh at
something in your dream world
& I wonder who
deserves that level
of confirmation.
For this review, I let Danowsky do most of the talking, or writing. His words shimmer with their lightness and their perfection. I though the best way I could review Take Care is to let you dear reader to discover the poem’s magic for yourselves. If you need reassurances, or simply lovely poetry, check this book out. ‘Til next time.
*As you can ascertain, I am eagerly awaiting the fourth season of Bridgerton.
Sean Hanrahan is a Philadelphian poet originally hailing from Dale City, Virginia. He is the author of the full-length collection Safer Behind Popcorn (2019 Cajun Mutt Press) and the chapbooks Hardened Eyes on the Scan (2018 Moonstone Press) and Gay Cake (2020 Toho). His work has also been included in several anthologies, including Moonstone Featured Poets, Queer Around the World, and Stonewall’s Legacy, and several journals, including Impossible Archetype, Mobius, Peculiar, Poetica Review, and Voicemail Poems. He has taught classes titled A Chapbook in 49 Days and Ekphrastic Poetry and hosted poetry events throughout Philadelphia.