Braid: Selected Poems and Thoughts of Pierre Soter (Collected by Anna Tegner)

​Review 4 star

Find It On Amazon (the link leads to individual books that contain poems from this anthology. This specific book is not yet on Amazon.) 

Braid: Poems and Thoughts Selected by Anna Tegner is a collection of intelligent and emotional pieces by Pierre Sotér. The book brings together poems from three of Sotér’s works (Dawn, Emotions and Emoções, and It May Be Better) to form a good composite of the ideas he expresses throughout his poetry. The message is a quest for philosophy and reason, combined with acceptance of the reality that there’s more to life than we can find with just our intellects. The collection has many layers and reflects the nuances and dignity of a searching mind examining life. “Life dawns in the worlds we dream and lives in the moments we will remember,” is a beautiful fragment from this book and delightful little gems appear throughout.
 
Pierre Sotér’s writing is noteworthy. It is gentle and sensitive yet packs a heavy punch of honesty and purpose—an uncommon combination. I was involved in each poem as an individual entity. While many books of poetry have an overall theme which all the poems reiterate, those in Braid: Poems and Thoughts have their own personality, distinct and visualized. Each one its own story. Reading this book was like reading many tiny books in one. The tone was often sad, but also joyful when describing love and curiosity about the world, those moments that make life special. Singing rhythms of undiluted ideas harnessed into words propel this book forward and that is just what poetry should be. Standout moments include the wistful painting of a bygone time in “Barren Crags,” “Singing in Wonderland,” “Turning Still,” the insightful “Bereft,” and the witty, imaginative “Taking Off.”