Title: Peace from Insanity
Author: Jesse M. Arzante
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 978-1-5320-3816-7
Pages: 60
Genre: Poetry
Reviewed by: Beth Adams
Pacific Book Review
In this surprisingly thought provoking collection of poems titled Peace from Insanity, author Jesse M. Arzante has assembled many “one-liners” on scores of topics of life. Thoughts on motherhood, power, love of all, the world and most potently the meaning of life are displayed, all generously spaced within the galley text, with each page being adorned with curly cues. While paging this book, one is engulfed with poetic phrases of insight, each being original and credible. The artistic layout of each page made me think of how one would likely find painted signs in a gift shop with such phrases as Arzante has scribed. As “less is often more,” meaning the one sentence sums up the feeling or emotion wishing to be conveyed, Peace from Insanity has more meaning infused within its 60 poems than what simply meets the eye. The words meet the minds of the readers; thusly expanding into ancillary thoughts as if a spoonful of instant coffee would fill a cup of water with robust flavor.
Having such a format makes Peace from Insanity an ideal companion book for a short travel or waiting room, enabling it to be picked up at any page, read and put down as time allows. The poems, to me, made me think about seashells on a beach; some small and some a bit larger, but each etched with its own intricacies of natural order bringing a unique awareness to my mind. I respected the summation aspects of bringing down to one sentence many huge and complex issues; resulting in a pause after each poem to reflect on how Arzante had come to revealing only that particular thought about a topic.
To paraphrase some of his work, he refers to power and money being equivalent to activists as matches and gasoline are to an arsonist. How the umbilical cord between the mother and child is replaced with a loving bond unique to each of them after birth. How a Shaman would watch the pollution of the Earth with sadness, or how colors which create beauty on canvas, when on the skin of people create rifts in racial bigotry. In order to bring an understanding of such complex issues – those of “Insanity” to a level of understanding and “Peace” are precisely the goals and theme of this collection.
Peace from Insanity is a keeper. It is a book which can be a thoughtful gift to a loved one or even used for growing young adults to see how insightful thoughts can come from such a complex world of experiences. As with seashells being collected on a walk along a shore, some are tossed back on the sand, some are kept forever, yet each one takes a moment of one’s concentration while seeking the beauty of its creation. So is the collection of Jesse M. Arzante’s poems.
