truth, love and the lines in between

Synopsis

The poems in truth, love, and the lines in between ride the convergence of O’Hara’s ability to focus on the everyday and Steinbeck’s passion for his subjects. Regardless of the particular content of each poem, this collection reveals a mind grappling with the precarious relationship between how we represent the world and its complexities. Rabinowitz’s brilliant, succinct verse conjures sensual and complex images, examines the natural strength of the earth and of love, and is the result of deep contemplation and self-reflection. Rabinowitz seizes each moment of experience, studies it with keen intelligence, and then complicates and delivers his insights with eloquence, leaving the reader satiated. With poems that beg their form, lines that ring with verity, and engaging subject matter, there is no doubt that truth, love, and the lines in between is a standout collection.

Have you ever paid attention to a season of your own life, as much as an awakening artist does? With each poem, either free form or prose, Paul takes the reader into the depth of single moments. What could be a flash and easily forgotten turns a meandering, whimsical, sensual…a search for meaning within himself and in the world around him. A search he doesn’t keep for himself, but shares to inspire others, as he has been inspired.I have floated through “truth love & the lines in between” — such an easy pleasure to experience Paul's journey as an artist (as a 21st century being trying/succeeding at being human). Confident, conflicted, digging, finding, not finding, loving… each poem felt like a Polaroid (or maybe a short film, 24 FPS, allowing us to be keenly privy to his thought dreams and/or reality, successes & failures.

—Michelle Ortego, author of Don’t Ask Why

Being privy is the greatest gift a writer (a poet, a filmmaker, et cetera) can offer, can give.

At the end of each selection, I had the same thought: “What’s next?” As a reader I felt connected without trying.

I hate picking favorites (stupid) so I won’t… although I will say that I loved how he broke the cycle/journey into the four seasons, a good structure when taking a walk. The writing is beautiful — succinct, straightforward, no bullshit, flowing.

Walking with you
in the dead of winter
trees exploding in the vacant air
you said even drops of sap
have water and can freeze suddenly
one by one like gunshots

Nice…

—Stephen Vittoria, filmmaker & author of Murder Incorporated: Empire, Genocide, and Manifest Destiny

These are the poems of a man gobsmacked by the muse – not in febrile youth but as a middle-aged suburbanite called to a journey he never expected to undertake. Addressed to lover, muse and artistic alter ego, Rabinowitz’s poems chronicle his creative odyssey, sharing with us the palpable job, infectious awe, and refreshing sense of humility which he experiences while capturing, like a photographer of the soul, “fleeting moments / that remain / with you / forever.”

–Paul Genega, author of Moordener Kill

This dynamic collection unflinchingly examines the anatomy of a human heart in flux. These poems are remarkable in their fearlessness as they chart the path of a poet finding his way through shifts in life, through change and yearning. This is a beautiful book.

–Tamar Jacobs, Editor for Iron City Magazine

what if I stood naked
sang love songs
that pry hearts open
like the edge
of a knife

 The poems in truth, love, and the lines in between ride the convergence of O’Hara’s ability to focus on the everyday and Steinbeck’s passion for his subjects. Regardless of the particular content of each poem, this collection reveals a mind grappling with the precarious relationship between how we represent the world and its complexities. Rabinowitz’s brilliant, succinct verse conjures sensual and complex images, examines the natural strength of the earth and of love, and is the result of deep contemplation and self reflection. Rabinowitz seizes each moment of experience, studies it with keen intelligence, and then complicates and delivers his insights with eloquence, leaving the reader satiated. With poems that beg their form, lines that ring with verity, and engaging subject matter, there is no doubt that truth, love, and the lines in between is a standout collection.

–CMarie Fuhrman, author of Camped Beneath the Dam

We encounter the vital voice of a “conflicted artist” at the start of his “second act” in this latest offering from Paul Rabinowitz, whose stories and poems awaken the senses like a cup of “fresh brewed Romanian coffee” with “an extra large slice of citrus honey cake.” Rabinowitz’s lines of exquisite longing undress images unexpectedly, as in the poem “Spin Cycle”: “a tarnished / gold band / I slide from / my finger // as you remove / your clothes / from a wicker basket // ask if I can spare / detergent.” More than a collection about an artist and his muse, this is a mature and wry exploration of how longing can be a circuitous means of self-reflection, a means of amplifying the artist’s “inner flame” so that he can remain until the end “a bud opening / thirsting for more.”

–Darla Himeles, author of Cleave

 Is the world a work of art? truth love and the lines in between by Paul Rabinowitz answers with an ardent “yes.” It is a compilation of portraits of living a life in the middle of aging, a pandemic, passions, and discoveries. These “drops landing/ on petals//one by one//a bud opening/thirsting for more” connect the longing of the speaker with the desires of the reader. Rabinowitz whirls and spins and dances in a language where community touches tenderly in the quotidian: “I have no hair atop my head but if I did it would be like yours…” Poems as snapshots, paintings, symphonies, stanzas, paragraphs, sentences, and lines, move through the ether of beauty. truth love and the lines in between are songs hummed alone in imagination, reverberating now on these pages like “needle on vinyl /heart pounds/ like rising notes/only the sound/ of your voice/ guiding these/ waking fingers.”

–Kathy Kremins, author of Undressing the World