They Lift Their Wings to Cry

June 2, 2008
Haxton's stripped-down, careful appreciations of flora, fauna and man-made things make him a reliable witness to what life gives and to what life takes away. Haxton's upstate New York locale gives him a good look at the harsh seasons, and at the beauty their procession brings: "berries/ of a bluebeard lily, blue as sapphires,/ blue with frost and poison." Haxton is capable of a fine wit: one poem pays comic homage to comic poet Kenneth Koch by imagining a fight between Rambo and Rimbaud. Usually, though, Haxton (Uproar) remains unadorned, thoughtful and sad. A poem called "Blast at the Attic Window" presents, "Inside a spinning cloud/ of stars, the mind/ in an intricate swirl of ice." Another, one of many about intimacy in advancing age, imagines what happens after "Her High School Flame Retires at 65 and Moves Back into His Childhood Home." It is not all downhill in this collection, nor is everything wintry: an unrhymed sonnet, lovely in its slight archaism, brings Haxton and his wife "Face to Face," as flattering "Sunlight under your eyebrow knits/ the iris into a bronzen veil."

June 16, 2008
Haxton's stripped-down, careful appreciations of flora, fauna and man-made things make him a reliable witness to what life gives and to what life takes away. Haxton's upstate New York locale gives him a good look at the harsh seasons, and at the beauty their procession brings: "berries/ of a bluebeard lily, blue as sapphires, / blue with frost and poison." Haxton is capable of a fine wit: one poem pays comic homage to comic poet Kenneth Koch by imagining a fight between Rambo and Rimbaud. Usually, though, Haxton (Uproar) remains unadorned, thoughtful and sad. A poem called "Blast at the Attic Window" presents, "Inside a spinning cloud/ of stars, the mind/ in an intricate swirl of ice." Another, one of many about intimacy in advancing age, imagines what happens after "Her High School Flame Retires at 65 and Moves Back into His Childhood Home." It is not all downhill in this collection, nor is everything wintry: an unrhymed sonnet, lovely in its slight archaism, brings Haxton and his wife "Face to Face," as flattering "Sunlight under your eyebrow knits/ the iris into a bronzen veil."

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

June 1, 2008
You could place Haxton in the Billy Collins school of poetry. His poems read readily, they are funny, smart, and so much more, as their blithe cleverness and charming humilitylightly camouflage a spiritual dimension. But Haxton goes his own way, channels his sages of choice, and keeps it low-key, bemused, and philosophical. Hisemotional palette is warm. His frame of reference encompasses Heraclitus, Ovid, the Bible, a CAT scan. His fascination with the small creatures that make up the bulk of what we call nature--he writes of crickets, moths, birds, a mouse--has ascientific cast even as itsprings fromafree-flowing empathy with all of life. Haxtons wit ambushes, as in the poem "Consciousness: An Allegory," which begins with a confrontation between a spider wasp and a wolf spider and ends with a stinging critique of humankind. Haxton marvels at the cold excesses of winter, andwrites wryly ofinebriation, ecstasy, sorrow, recklessness, and the magic of words as they track and transcend time. He isnt shy about taking joyin"Planet Earth / blue-green as anopal."(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2008, American Library Association.)