Scanning Past Horizons

With a taste of nostalgia, “Scanning Past Horizons: Poetry in Time,” by Randy Lee White delves into the psyche of struggling Americans, both now and in the past. With poems such as the “Morning Rush,” and “Broad and Main,” the audience feels the frenzy of rush hour and the cacophonous workweek. They plunge into a digital world that is instantaneous and permanent with such poems as “Weirdest Thing,” “Microscopes,” and “The Workhorse.”

Readers will also explore a multifaceted view on poetic time, embrace key moments that have shaped America and the world in such poems as “The 1903 Flyer,” “Bonus. 1932,” “Bone Dry, 1935,” “Letter for Home, June 1944,” and “Moonwalk, 1969.” These events give a glimpse of a past not so clean, not so righteous—yet, promising. Many of these sonnets tug at the reader’s heart with light comedy and realistic drama.

At the very center of this collection is a poem about time itself, titled, “Now & Then.”  It illuminates humanity’s struggle to preserve time. In the blink of an eye or the scroll of the platen roller on a typewriter, time passes regardless of our feeble attempts to control it.

And the essence of this collection is that time. Time to think; time to ponder. Are we searching for something to define us? Do we unknowingly judge others? Do we spit on “truth’s granite façade,” as the old man said? (Perhaps his attitude can help us see our ignorance in judging others without a better understanding of ourselves.) This multifaced collection fills the reader with a sense of purpose in understanding.

In the end, “Scanning Past Horizons: Poetry in Time” is about our humanity and how certain moments in time have shaped us. Furthermore, this collection leaves readers pondering the question of whether we define the events that make history, or the events that make history define us forever. This collection will be a timeless glimpse into that abyss and have readers returning again and again.