Bonfire of the Verities

Know about the book -

Bonfire of the Verities is written by Michael Lieberman and published by Texas A&M University Press. It's available with International Standard Book Number or ISBN identification 1937875318 (ISBN 10) and 9781937875312 (ISBN 13).

Res ipsa loquitor—the thing speaks for itself—as the lawyers say. But does it? Not in Michael Lieberman’s new book of poems, Bonfire of the Verities. What speaks here is doubt and the commitment to cast aside the apparent truths we all accumulate. Those verities are what are tossed onto Lieberman's bonfire: It is here I heap the platitudes I cannot keep. He grounds his struggle precisely: The coordinates of the country of doubt are 29º, 45’ N / 95º, 21’ W, which are those of Houston, his adopted city. It is an unusual poet who is willing to pare away belief and accept that truths—received or earned—must be discarded as we face the unknowable mystery. In the end what Lieberman wrests from the void is the recognition that there is no ultimate choice but dissolution: This fire burns in me— it cannot set me free it leaves me ash, not tree. And yet ash is both residue and tree, offering the possibility that dissolution is a kind of redemption.