Guernica Editions

A soaring alchemical vision.

Like some latter-day Magellan, Powe has taken it upon himself to sail into turbulent waters, mapping out the hazards and the consequences.

In Where Seas and Fables Meet, B.W. Powe has produced a volume which in his own words ‘gives permission to wandering’. What he means by this is first that the work meanders in and out of various forms, from aphorism to fragment and short prose parables. As well, it means that it traverses a number of diverse areas of focus or concern. This apparent wandering is, nonetheless, thematically cohesive and skillfully sustained throughout Powe’s literary journey. To mention simply one of many significantly salient themes is that of ‘psychotic institutions’, or what he otherwise calls ‘the structure’, among whose many alternate names he includes Moloch, Big Brother, Hitlerism/Stalinism, the System, the Trilateral Commission, the G.W. Bush Administration, and the Military-Industrial Complex (along with Blake’s earlier version of it – The Dark Satanic Mills). In this relation, notably, Powe likewise identifies the zeitgeist associated with online networks, pointing out in ‘Networks Uprising’ that ‘30%-40% of global citizens calling out for change constitute a seismic shift in consciousness. No revolutionary movements in the past ever had such percentages of popular support’. Observing the existence of a kind of general cyber longing for ‘the end of representative democracy and the rise of participatory democracy’, he includes among such movements Occupy Wall Street and the Arab Spring. And he notes that – behind these – lies a widely shared perception that ‘democracies are not democratic enough’. Ain’t that the very truth?

This remarkable assembly of shorts – Parables, Aphorisms, Fragments, Thought – exudes profound, at times humorous, thought provoking insights into the human soul. Here, Powe’s fascination with Light prevails. Along with all of its manifestations, Light is a countermeasure to the Structure (at one time the System, and its equivalents), which encompasses all forms of mind and soul crushing. To escape the Structure’s onslaughts Powe listens to his inner voices, speaking the language of creation and wonder, and opts for a strategy of breakthrough through self-expression – as did Blake, Nietzsche, Whitman, Kafka, Kubrick, and others, including Yuri in Zhivago; and, significantly, Grace in Seas and Fables.

To B.W. Powe: This morning I finished your beautiful and compelling Where Seas and Fables Meet – a magnificent and inspiring work. It expresses your liberation philosophy, with much that is personal, woven into rhapsodic layers. Threads gain resonance; fables and anecdotes hang in the mind (and heart), ready to bloom and reach for the sky – music of the spheres. It soars. I love the story about Comet Yoga, its tree imagery, and duelling storytelling between mother and son. And, as a student of media, I appreciate your wisdom and insights about the Structure, places of dissent and openings, wave gypsies and their networking. You are writing beautifully, my friend, in a voice brimming with wisdom and love.

Trenchant in vision, and often rhapsodic … Powe adapts the stance of a rhetorician – a fitting stance … that involves not only observation of the evidence but regard for the beauty of a sentence.

A rich and subtly argued book that offers many first-hand insights.