Since the publication of River Route, Thomas Reiter’s first collection of poems published in 1977, he made it clear the journey he would document through his poems: youth on the Mississippi River and Mid-west plains, to the New Jersey Pine Barrens, and to the islands of the Caribbean that he and his wife JoNell would explore, culminating in this posthumous collection of powerful poems discovered by his son Peter upon his death in 2022.

Some poets, even great poets, lose their powers as they age, some grow stronger, Reiter was one of the latter group. Although Pearly Everlasting (2000) was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and Catchment (2009) was considered by some to be his best work to date, Arising from Trees is as strong or stronger than both of those volumes. Here Reiter moves fluidly, as always, between the memories of his childhood home to the realities of his adult life in the New Jersey Pinelands and the Caribbean islands he grew to love. These poems document, examine and explore the mythology, lives, stories and histories of the one thing that weaves these disparate poems together: people.

People dominate Reiter’s poems no matter their position in life—Caribbean slaves, Masters, pioneers, carpenters— both historical and fictional. Their lives are presented to the reader with sympathy, empathy when needed, humor when called for, but always with a sense of caring and understanding. Thomas Reiter was a quiet, gentle soul and that is manifested in many of his poems. Here are the closing lines of “A Glass of Milk,” a gut-wrenching example of his power, with a simple narrative, to tear your heart out as he presents a young girl murdered whose spirit seems to linger in the environment of the poem and in the poet’s psyche:
Last night I dreamt I was a child again.
I opened the door to our refrigerator
and discovered she was standing
beside me on the bright linoleum…
I wasn’t frightened.
The day she came out of the river
had turned to night and she held my hand.
I think all she wanted was a glass of milk.

In another life, Tom Reiter might have been a botanist or biologist, his knowledge of and curiosity about the science of things was broad and deep, but that never overwhelms the reader; by context, he educated. As poet Brendan Galvin has written, Reiter “was probably the finest poet-botanist since Robert Frost.”

From railroad carpenters to dowsers, to cane cutters to pioneers responsible for every aspect of their lives—wagons, animals, land and sod houses—all are treated with dignity and respect, admiration is generously given from a modern word-craftsman to those who crafted wood and stone and earth in the past.

For Thomas Reiter the world was a landscape of texts to be read—from grass to gardens, trees, beaches, Pineland pools of cedar-tinged water, oceans—he read closely and carefully. Fortunately for us he shared his discoveries through his poetry in language meant to express, not impress. For Reiter the world was not a cipher to be cracked, but a series of messages in languages he knew, and tells us we do too, instinctively. There is a great deal to be had, he tells us again and again, from glimpses and fragments, from hints to the tiniest of things. His poems have the power to make our lives richer and more complete.

These poems, I suspect, were never meant as an end point to a life in poetry, but they are certainly a powerful conclusion to a writing life very well spent.

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Arising From Trees

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