Mere Being

In poems well-honed and riveting Barry Amis bears witness to the worlds struggles and enigmas. He ponders lost opportunities the universal concerns of good vs. evil gifts and losses the ravages of world unrest and the tribulations of inner cities. Profound and intense Mere Being ultimately offers hope that one day the riddle of lifes paradoxes will be solved and equality and stability will come to all.--Carolyn Kreiter-Foronda author of Gathering Light and Poet Laureate of Virginia 2006-2008There is uncommon linguistic agility in Barry Amis work that brings words like cradle and cactus into insightful proximity and offers us such pairs as saxophoning gossamer and wellwanting grief. Thus language draws us into the intelligible world even as it skirts a mystery. Many of the poems point toward survival: birds that rise and hum and leave us with wise and lasting admonitions: Say it / stone is no substitute / for manna. Indeed with each verse in Mere Being we are being gracefully wordfully fed.--Sofia M. Starnes author of The Consequence of Moonlight and Poet Laureate of Virginia 2012-2014One could do worse than trip in the tradition of Gerard Manley Hopkins and Charles Wright. These pieces may be Unprayered but on Easter Island the speaker in Amis Moai who has traveled his own version of the via negativa says Lie down my guardians / We go to meet miracles. --Ron Smith author of The Humility of the Brutes and Poet Laureate of Virginia 2014-2016