Northeast Kingdom poet Don Craig has recently published a collection of his work entitledA Lens of Ice: Poems and Theorems exhibiting more that 60 years of lyric words.
Born in West Burke in 1926, Mr. Craig is a Vermonter, born and raised. He later attended St. Johnsbury Academy from there moving on to Middlebury College for one year. He dropped out, called to home by his family, but in that brief span of time, was able to meet Robert Frost. Mr. Craig dedicates a poem to the memory of that meeting with Mr. Frost in his collection and also mentions through other dedications his close friendship with the late Orleans poet James Hayford.
With such a vast collection of poems from every dimension of life, Mr. Craig separates his work into various sections as if they were postulates and corollary theorems, speaking to everything from the craft of poetry to modern technology and Egyptology. It seems Mr. Craig's influences are equally diverse: his Universalist-Unitarian upbringing melds into Latin lessons and from there jumps to modern science and psychology, which he practiced as comptroller at Northeast Kingdom Mental Health. Other important turns in his life include his participation in the The Great Books reading program and The Synapse, a St. Johnsbury social club.
Many of Mr. Craig's poems come from his relaxing days on Newark Pond. He has spent more than 60 summers there, reposing and creating poems. The following is just one from his section "Newark Pond."
From Nowhere a Bolt of Sound
The moon is full, the pond is still, When from nowhere a bolt of sound Splits the air and sends a chill From bone to bone to the cold ground.
It is the loon's clear, Martian cry, Now crossing the fractured sky — Whose laughter ancient gods rehearsed Before ever the world was cursed.
One can read the Northeast Kingdom in Mr. Craig's book just as it was possible to derive such from Mr. Hayford's poetry. But the two men are by no means writing about the same aspects to the Kingdom; while Mr. Hayford's poems often revolve around the everyday functioning of his local community, Mr. Craig's messages usually start here and fly out to there, somewhere into the esoteric universe. This does not diminish either of the poets’ powers but perhaps gives greater insight into their deep friendship in the ways that they might have shared a common poetic bond but perhaps looked at the world through different lenses.
Another poem in Mr. Craig's collection addresses this subtle distinction between the two men:
Larch light
As the sun was going down And we were walking home, I left the path that led Where we should cross a fence.
My playmates went on, Our day at play near done, While I followed ... Was it an underground stream?
I found myself alone Within a golden sphere, Made by a larch's yellow needles On the ground and on the tree.
Alarmed by lambent light I stood transfixed; I did not see outside Or hear my comrades call to me.
Beneath my feet a curved floor spread, Woven of gold and soft with damp; And then I heard them urge me back — Where we crossed the fence.
Most of all, Mr. Craig's poems focus of this universality of all things. He feels the divine in water fowl and relates childhood beliefs in magic while also sometimes portraying the world in an ordered classical, Roman light.
This is Mr. Craig's second published book, the first being Amen: a Book of Uncommon Prayer. He printed only 125 copies of A Lens of Ice complete with drawings by Mr. Craig's daughter Cynthia Craig Greenwood. The book may be acquired by contacting Mr. Craig at 334-2491.
