Dragon Ship

Poetry. Following the seasons of a poet's life over the course of two years, Daniel Polikoff's DRAGON SHIP continually discovers spiritual significance in everyday "incidents of being." A ferris wheel transforms into a zodiac of starts; a game of poohsticks becomes an act of prayer; deity itself appears as a "blind musician / with a thousand dancing hands." The mythic figure of the dragon, recurring in kites, festivals, alchemical texts, and a ship in Switzerland, joins the worlds of creative and destructive potential in one leading archetypal image. The poet's young son Hyden figures as the book's presiding genius as the poet seeks to marshal the imaginative forces that may help face gathering darkness, for "the only defense / is the light / you bear within."