Summary: | Turning Compost is a collection of forty poems, two of which, Seven Kakhaiku and Tres Troubled Triolets, are multiple poems intended to be read as units. The poems have been ordered so that there is a flow of connected or contrasting ideas from poem to poem, therefore it is recommended that they be read in the order presented. The themes covered by the poems are varied, but principal amongst them are memory, nature, dreams and symbols, family and friends, and the search for meaning; they appear in roughly that order. Death, and its challenges to meaning, is a theme which recurs throughout the collection, something which is reflected in the collection's title which is borrowed from one of the poems. Included is one poem, Pig People, which was written specifically for children. The poems are written in a variety of forms, evincing the poet's conscious rejection of stylistic consistency as a goal in developing his voice.
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