Richard J Ackerman

A Hundred-Year Wind: Reflective Poems Richard J Ackerman

The sharp bite of nostalgia, the wars we fight against others and against ourselves, and the gentle heartbreaks and joys that sneak up on us with each passing year: these are the ingredients of life, and the heart of A Hundred-Year Wind.

In these pages we encounter Donald, who experiences a fresh slap of isolation when he returns to school after the loss of his family: "By association, / Fate of an ordinary day, / Might go horribly wrong again." And Elva Lea, who "Recalled the long journey / That began in a tiny bungalow scarcely a hundred miles away, / A place where eight people tried to reconstitute a family / And failed." We meet children who turn branches of oak trees into ships on waves of wind, and grandchildren who become "an image on a computer screen talking to a camera."

With profound observations of the turmoil that marks each new generation, these poems become our own, and serve as a reminder of the strength of those who came before us, and of the resilience found in us all.