HEART MUSIC

Sidney Lanier once said, "Music is love in search of a word." In Heart Music, Edward Van Slambrouck has found that word and many more. These are poems inspired by his deep love of music and his celebration of life in all its glories and sorrows. From his experiences as a son, father, husband, citizen and spiritual being, he has woven a collection of powerful poems that sing to the heart and bring us closer to understanding our own lives.With his musician's ear, Van Slambrouck brings us echoes of those diaphanous feelings that exist even in the silences between the words. Poetry is the perfect form for his thoughts because it combines sound and image in a way that is as close to song as one can get, while still using language.There is a wonderful sense of connecting dichotomies in Heart Music as well, especially in poems like "Dissonance of Our Wounds," where he says, "Like musicians using dissonance / to produce a song of elegant whole, / our God uses dissonance of wounds / to create bright wonders within our soul." This collection of poems travels the many opposite notes of ecstasy and grief and, connecting them in an "elegant whole," helps us to see "bright wonders." It is a work of revelation as well as transformation.From the Introduction to Heart Music by Margo LaGattutaOnSpring: A Family of Poems, Mr. Van Slambrouck's first book, was published in 2005. Peter Meinke, a noted national poet, commented the following: " thanks for sending me your touching chapbook, OnSpring, whose pages are heartfelt, moving, linguistically admirable and playful."