Words From Within Inspire and Guide
Peter Burt's Poems Seek to Find Freedom and Meaning
Peter Burt’s Words from Within (Soaring Images, 2008) percolates with hope, doubt and discovery as the author’s personal journey to self-awareness evolves.
Breaking Free
The author clearly records his passage in a series of introspections that begin with his painful awareness that his life has been lived according to society’s pseudo, shallow rules. Burt says, “All life is a stage/and we perform our roles as we see fit/changing roles often/and costumes daily” (p.8). One cannot help but think here of T.S. Eliot’s J. Alfred Prufrock who measures his life in coffee spoons.
Burt struggles with doubt and loneliness, yet ultimately allows himself to risk breaking free of the fetters of social demands and expectations. In this freedom, he ultimately finds his voice, his soul, his true self. His is a liberating journey of self-discovery. He does not conquer his fears or his past; he learns to embrace them and finds that in the process he is transported beyond them.
The Search for Personal Meaning
Words from Within: A Series of Introspections, is divided into six journals, beginning with “First Contact.” In many ways the most inspiring journal, “First Contact” will touch the core of readers who are searching for personal meaning and value in their own lives. The following journals carry one with Burt on his journey, ultimately providing thoughtful reflections for anyone pursing their own path to personal fulfillment.
This collection of poems is Burt’s awakening to who he really is. It records Burt’s struggle to be “present,” always in the NOW and to live his song. His passage will encourage those who hunger for more than living their lives measured out in coffee spoons to embrace a journey of discovery of one’s vast potential and uniqueness.
Burt’s lone voice is one crying out in the chaos of civilization; his is a beacon of hope, a guiding light on the journey to self-fulfillment and personal meaning for those not yet fully anesthetized to life.
A sense of happiness blankets Burt’s words, even though one cannot help but feel that Burt is the embodiment of James Kavanaugh’s There Are Men Too Gentle to Live Among Wolves: “There are men too gentle to live among wolves/Who prey upon them with IBM eyes/And sell their hearts and guts for martinis at noon./There are men too gentle for a savage world/Who dream instead of snow and children and Halloween/And wonder if the leaves will change their color soon.”
Words from Within is a must for those searching and ready for their voyage away from the shackles of social order and expectation to the mysterious realm of personal meaning and freedom.
Peter Burt is the author of several other works, including A Field of Passion, A Selection of Love Poems.
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