“The Lamps of History” by Michael Sandler

Michael D. Sandler of Sandler Arbitration & Mediation LLC has written The Lamps of History, a collection of poems exploring our nuanced and often-complicated relationship with the past.  

From the publisher:  

The Lamps of History wrestles with the ambiguities--and choices--between connection/alienation, renewal/decay, and faith/doubt. Its poems explore dimming family histories and our stance toward them, the frayed bonds with our grandparents' traditions and beliefs, and distances in our current relationships. 

There are also poems on our civic estrangements: an ode to a papaya that spills into America's tribal conflict; elegies to the environment (one on disappearing phytoplankton, another on forests ravaged by pine beetles); a ghazal to a semi-automatic weapon; and a failed recipe for noodle pudding. 

Michael Sandler's writing marshals wit and wordplay in a deft handling of language and form. The poetry navigates the crosscurrents of tradition and post-modernism, steering somewhat closer to the former. 

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