Review of Vanished Roads By Melanie Medved

 Review of Vanished Roads By Melanie Medved

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I thought Thomas L. Vaultonburg's new collection of poems was going to stay with me for an afternoon, which is how long it took me to devour his latest publication, “Vanished Roads.” Instead, it's been lingering for two weeks now, in the way the first Autumn night air settles into your bones. It’s just sitting there, thick with emotional residue and meaning, while I struggle to succinctly put into words just how stellar the collection is.

Vaultonburg has been a favorite of mine for years. Following his literary career through everything from darker poetry to children's books and fiction, I've witnessed him move effortlessly between genres and forms. He has a strong ability to shapeshift as a writer, yet maintain his track record of consistent excellence in all genres. I was looking forward to his collection of haiku/short-form poetry, waiting to see if he could once again knock it out of the park. He has.

From the opening poem, which arrives not like a leaf drifting onto the page, but like a train waking you up in the night, Vaultonburg announces his poetic intention immediately— You’re going to feel something as you read these poems. The first three lines introduce a pattern he will use often throughout the book— most often staying true to the concept of traditional haiku using a central subject in nature (in this case, wind and bamboo) and adding a few perfectly chosen words to assign it an emotional impact (this time, human emotional frailty and ennui) that often jumps out at the reader with layers of meaning. He writes:

wind through bamboo

I too

Am hollow.

Then, after announcing himself and his arrival, without hesitation, he rolls up his sleeves and trudges off in old boots into the colorful territory: dawn, peonies, the evening rain, deer, wolf tracks and more. Quietly threading the beautiful natural landscapes we all encounter each day, with the fragile emotional territory of grief, regret, loneliness, and hope— one after the other, painting them together in a style that is somehow both bold and vivid and soft and gentle at the same time— Vaultonburg is like the Van Gogh of poetry.

Though his subjects are universally relatable, they are still deeply personal, as evident early on pages 8 and 9, when he writes about the passing of two family members in a way that made me ache with empathy and understanding. Those feelings accumulate with each page, and nearly every haiku hits hard. By the final page you’re sitting there with the wind knocked out of you, not by a hurricane, but by a light spring rain. The weight of his tiny gray book is difficult to shake, in the best possible ways.

A bonus is that it felt like a two-in-one book: poetry combined with Buddhist wisdom. Many writers try hard to “teach” lessons, and while Vaultonburg wasn’t even trying, he landed quite a few with ease:

bee in the window

I open it

for both of us

(page 30)

He has a subtle yet strong way of showing how our lives intersect with the natural world, and the impact each can have on the other. He saves a bee, and in doing so, he’s sparing a small piece of himself. Those everyday sadnesses of trapped bees lie in juxtaposition with hope and happiness on the pages. “Wheat fields ablaze with joy” and prairie winds that steal hats are felt just as strongly through his curated words. He writes of dharma and dragonflies opposite a page which encourages the reader to:

Ask the snow

to forgive you—

then leave no trail

Last but not least, another highlight are the illustrations by his writing partner Tré, whose tiny pen-and-ink style drawings show up at just the right time and place to add another beautiful layer to the already outstanding book. The two have proven they are a powerhouse before in their combined haiku/illustration book, “Moonscape,” and it is just as magical to see little glimpses of her art show up here in his solo volume.

In summary, this is truly some of the most recent memorable poetry I’ve experienced in years. After closing this book, I felt like I’d discovered something for the first time. My mind went back to third grade when I first read Carl Sandburg’s poem “Fog.” 40 years and thousands of poems later, it’s hard to recapture the joy that I felt in that classroom of my first favorite poem, and yet, Thomas Vaultonburg has handed me that joy again with “Vanished Roads.” His strict inventory of words, ability to capture single snapshots in time, and his ability to produce a book this wise without a single trace of pretention should be embraced and applauded by old and new fans of poetry alike.