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While There Is Time is a the new collection of poems by Martin Tucker, editorof the prize-winning literary journal, Confrontation.The UltimatePenultimate, the provocative poem from which this collection derives its title,encapsulates theMoreWhile There Is Time is a the new collection of poems by Martin Tucker, editorof the prize-winning literary journal, Confrontation.The UltimatePenultimate, the provocative poem from which this collection derives its title,encapsulates the wistful, ironic, temporal world of Martin Tuckers third volumeof poetry. Its not enough to sayI like the word. Ive said that many a time,Though never said it would be the last timeId say it. Surprising turns as wellabound in While There Is Time: Penultimate Poems. Moving from phase to phase,the book reflects the chapters of a poets life from Closing Calls toJourneys to Steps to the Journeys to Long Ago and Revisionary andultimately to Ultimate Poems.Along the map of journeys the reader is treated to Tuckers humorous,darkened wordplay in The Undertakers New Clothes-He took his work seriously.He prepared grounds for others. Undertaking anything is a serious business. Hedid not give ground on grave issues. Or the plaintive remembrance of anabsentee father in The Missing Father-It comes back, it comes back Like thememory of a memory of absence- So long ago it seems of no matter I ever knew. Itwas on a subway platform, waiting for an endless train. Ultimately, the readermoves to poems that examine the very essence of being a poet. In The Cello ofMy Heart the author wonders why he cannot write a love poem when asked by abeautiful woman-Why can I not write a love poem when women ask for one? PerhapsI should shed my poetic license.... In the final poem in the volume, the poetwrites a clearly rhetorical and not so rhetorical question when he asks Howdeep does a poem have to go? After all craft is part of a poets life.Tuckers earlier works of poetry have been highly praised by writers asdiverse as Kurt Vonnegut, Cynthia Ozick, and David Ignatow. Ozick has written ofhis second volume, Attention Spans, Tuckers poems make you think of the birthof blazing peacocks rupturing their shells- his images always take you bysurprise. Vonnegut has written of Tuckers poem Mother: On Dying, Not Death,that if it is as personal as it seems, then it must have cost you more painthan I have ever been willing to spend on anything. Brave man. In this latestwork Tucker takes a step forward in a continuing exploration of the joys ofliving in a sometimes-distressing world. For him, penultimacy is a last hurrah,the spur to living as one has never lived before. While There Is Time by Martin Tucker
