truth, love and the lines in between

The poems in truth, love, and the lines in between ride the convergence of O'Hara's ability to focus on the everyday and Steinbeck's passion for his subjects. Regardless of the particular content of each poem, this collection reveals a mind grappling with the precarious relationship between how we represent the world and its complexities. Rabinowitz's brilliant, succinct verse conjures sensual and complex images, examines the natural strength of the earth and of love, and is the result of deep contemplation and self reflection. Rabinowitz seizes each moment of experience, studies it with keen intelligence, and then complicates and delivers his insights with eloquence, leaving the reader satiated. With poems that beg their form, lines that ring with verity, and engaging subject matter, there is no doubt that truth, love, and the lines in between is a standout collection.

About the Author :
Paul Rabinowitz is an author, poet, photographer and founder of ARTS By The People. His works appear in The Sun Magazine, New World Writing, Burningword, Evening Street Press, The Montreal Review and elsewhere. Rabinowitz was a featured artist in Nailed Magazine in 2020 and Mud Season Review in 2022. He is the author of The Clay Urn, Confluence and Limited Light, a book of prose and portrait photography, which stems from his Limited Light photo series, nominated for Best of the Net in 2021. His poems and fiction are the inspiration for 7 award winning experimental films, including Best Experimental Short at Cannes, Paris and Oregon Short Film Festival. He has produced mixed media performances and poetry films that have appeared on stages and in theaters in New York City, New Jersey, Tel Aviv and Paris. truth, love and the lines in between is his first book of poetry.

Review :
These are the poems of a man gobsmacked by the muse-not in febrile youth but as a middle-aged suburbanite called to a journey he never expected to undertake. Addressed to lover, muse and artistic alter ego, Rabinowitz's poems chronicle his creative odyssey, sharing with us the palpable job, infectious awe, and refreshing sense of humility which he experiences while capturing, like a photographer of the soul, "fleeting moments / that remain / with you / forever." -Paul Genega, author of Moordener Kill This dynamic collection unflinchingly examines the anatomy of a human heart in flux. These poems are remarkable in their fearlessness as they chart the path of a poet finding his way through shifts in life, through change and yearning. This is a beautiful book. -Tamar Jacobs, Editor for Iron City Magazine "what if I stood naked / sang love songs / that pry hearts open / like the edge / of a knife" The poems in truth, love, and the lines in between ride the convergence of O'Hara's ability to focus on the everyday and Steinbeck's passion for his subjects. Regardless of the particular content of each poem, this collection reveals a mind grappling with the precarious relationship between how we represent the world and its complexities. Rabinowitz's brilliant, succinct verse conjures sensual and complex images, examines the natural strength of the earth and of love, and is the result of deep contemplation and self reflection. Rabinowitz seizes each moment of experience, studies it with keen intelligence, and then complicates and delivers his insights with eloquence, leaving the reader satiated. With poems that beg their form, lines that ring with verity, and engaging subject matter, there is no doubt that truth, love, and the lines in between is a standout collection. -CMarie Fuhrman, author of Camped Beneath the Dam Is the world a work of art? truth love and the lines in between by Paul Rabinowitz answers with an ardent "yes." It is a compilation of portraits of living a life in the middle of aging, a pandemic, passions, and discoveries. These "drops landing/ on petals//one by one//a bud opening/thirsting for more" connect the longing of the speaker with the desires of the reader. Rabinowitz whirls and spins and dances in a language where community touches tenderly in the quotidian: "I have no hair atop my head but if I did it would be like yours..." Poems as snapshots, paintings, symphonies, stanzas, paragraphs, sentences, and lines, move through the ether of beauty. truth love and the lines in between are songs hummed alone in imagination, reverberating now on these pages like "needle on vinyl /heart pounds/ like rising notes/only the sound/ of your voice/ guiding these/ waking fingers." -Kathy Kremins, author of Undressing the World We encounter the vital voice of a "conflicted artist" at the start of his "second act" in this latest offering from Paul Rabinowitz, whose stories and poems awaken the senses like a cup of "fresh brewed Romanian coffee" with "an extra large slice of citrus honey cake." Rabinowitz's lines of exquisite longing undress images unexpectedly, as in the poem "Spin Cycle" "a tarnished / gold band / I slide from / my finger // as you remove / your clothes / from a wicker basket // ask if I can spare / detergent." More than a collection about an artist and his muse, this is a mature and wry exploration of how longing can be a circuitous means of self-reflection, a means of amplifying the artist's "inner flame" so that he can remain until the end "a bud opening / thirsting for more." -Darla Himeles, author of Cleave