This is a collection of prose poems, presented in paragraph form, by Vic Depta, a native of Buffalo Creek – yes the West Virginia community thatwas flooded in 1972, killing 125 people, injuring 1,121, and displacing over 4,000. The flood was caused when the Pittston Coal Company’s coal slurry impoundment dam #3 burst. A retired professor and prolific poet, Depta now resides in Frankfort, Kentucky. “In The Strawberry Moon Victor Depta creates a collection of prose poems that feel as nimble and fluid as haiku, yet retain the solidity of the fully pursued idea of the lyric. The poems manage to be philosophical without dwelling in abstraction, emotional without slipping into sentimentality, and both political and spiritual without reverting to sermons.” – Jesse Graves. “Readers will find here poems that delight in the everyday phenomena of the natural world. They will find, as well, however, poems grappling with the paradox of consciousness, poems unafraid to consider mountain top removal mining, and rhododendrons, and dill weed! The Strawberry Moon offers an intriguingly subtle melding of philosophy and poetry that should fascinate readers.” – Marc Harshman. “Disguised as meditations on aging and death these fine prose poems are purposeful explorations of the slender bonds that connect the natural world and the self, consciousness and the unknowable . . . . These poems of self-discovery invite reading and re-reading.” - Richard Taylor.
Frankfort, Kentucky: Blair Mountain Press, 2017. 70 pages. Trade paperback