A Leaf Called Socrates

The interplay of the written word and the painted image converge in Ann Holmes' skillfully crafted poetry. Holmes gets inside the action of a poem, imagining what it is like to be the atomic bomb in Hiroshima, a goat in Greece, spring beginning, a
cloud refusing to change its form. Love, loss, wonder, and the quirkiness of life leap off the page.
"How rich a palette, poet-artist Ann Holmes' brings to her second collection "A Leaf Called Socrates." How powerful is her artist pen as she approaches biblical and ancient figures as intimates. "I glaze a Bosch bubble/around Adam and Eve/so they may stay in the garden." With engines of irony and honesty, her poem "When I knew," creates a loving reproach to intimate family encounters. Her poems, revealing human frailties, glow nonetheless, with color and affection. After her sojourn as an artist in Japan, she evokes a place where 'Seven round holes/one above the other/"exist, "as if the moon/ dropped out/ of
the sky." In this new collection of poetry, her language, phrase and imagery paint emotional hues to reveal people in their flaws and creative gifts."
-Lou Barrett, author of Connecting Flights, Doors Gates and Portals, Clotheslines