Lost in Time: Latest Poems
Emiliano Martín
$16.00
You can purchase a copy here.
Reviewed by Jennifer Schneider
Lost in Time: Latest Poems by Emiliano Martín is all good things published in one neatly bound collection. It’s drafted from pockets of joy, hope, and resiliency. It’s also stitched and crafted of contemplative and philosophical urgency. The pieces offer comfort and solace as much as hope and inspiration.
The 120-page collection gifts readers over one hundred poems. It’s a satisfyingly soulful read that provides a timely reminder of the joys of poetry as exploration, expression, and experience. Beyond the power of the individual pieces, the collection offers every reason to lose track of time within the pages of Lost in Time.
Martín provides context for the collection –
original poems
based on life’s observations by a poet with personal
experience with a scent of philosophical reflections; spiced
by the verses of his dreams
in an introduction that grounds the work around its namesake poem,
The time we’ve spent together is gone out of our hands
we could not even hold it to the bit of our heart,
it is not necessary to remember what we did …
By now we know…that we are lost in time
From “Lost in Time”
The poems offer keen observations and reflect the poet’s generous nature. The work is a reminder of the power of presence and the ever more powerful pen that accompanies the poet – and readers – through life’s (and a life’s dreams’) many moments.
The work is as much a celebration of poetry as it is of a life well lived. It’s also as accessible as it is expansive.
From “The Rope”
Hiking the slopes of my life
I carry my own ideas yet with no fear at all.
They seem to be well protected
in the backpack of my faults.
Knowing that I take my chances,
being aware of circumstances
where I only act alone
to “Loreley Rock”
Oh…! the old castles in ruins…
foot prints of history capturing
the attention of eyes
obviously having the time of their lives
Martín explores themes that traverse the deepest of human emotions and the most familiar of human experiences. The pieces capture human experience in ways both reflective and generative. The collection grounds readers in the spirit of focusing on the present whatever that might mean for individual readers, as it generates new ways of thinking, seeing, and experiencing the world around us in its many forms.
Varied in form, the pieces create a sensation of lightness despite, or perhaps in spite of, the serious themes that transcend time and permeate all cycles of life-- from origins to endings and from the sweetness of prospects to the sting of past regrets. With dreams and dream-stages a recurrent theme, Emiliano Martínmoves mountains by focusing on the miracle of the minute and the mystifying mundane alongside the cycles of life at their most pure and their most complex.
In a world heavy of fear and sadness, as well as loss and regret, these poems bring hope. They are a reminder of poetry’s power and presence. Of day and night. Of daily living and dusk come evening. Of dreaming. Of the past and of the future. Of the present.
The collection gifts poetry as an art form accessible to all, all who choose to focus on the world as experienced. Martín opens windows to poetry’s freshest air as he demonstrates verse’s potential as both healer and light. Martín closes the collection with pages of words crafted of timeless conviction — as in from “Phrases to Go By”: “Love at first bite can be a nice meal served at the table”.
Treat each poem in this collection as a bite and as a delight, each part of a larger, deeply satisfying meal. As you read, have a pen ready for as Martín knows and shares so well, poetry is indeed ours for the picking. We simply need to be prepared. Dear reader, enjoy the gift of Martín’s poetry. Lost in Time is well worth your time.
Jen Schneider is an educator who lives, writes, and works in small spaces throughout Pennsylvania. She loves words, experimental poetry, and the change of seasons. She’s also a fan of late nights, crossword puzzles, and compelling underdogs. She has authored several chapbooks and full-length poetry collections, with stories, poems, and essays published in a variety of literary and scholarly journals. Sample works include Invisible Ink, On Habits & Habitats, On Daily Puzzles: (Un)locking Invisibility, A Collection of Recollections, and Blindfolds, Bruises, and Breakups. She is currently working on her first series, which (not surprisingly) includes a novel in verse. She is the 2022-2023 Montgomery County PA Poet Laureate.