Love Poems Kanta Bosniak

Love Poems

Kanta Bosniak

CreateSpace

$8.99 on Amazon

Review by Rene Schwiesow

Kanta Bosniak makes her home in the foothills of the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains.  There she focuses on her art, music, writing, life coaching, inter-faith work and people.  I met Kanta in a wonderful, artsy coffee shop that showcases much of Kanta’s artwork on a hot, summer morning in 2011 – The Coffee Depot in Christianburg, VA.  I was surrounded by her vibrant artwork (she had a show hung in the space) and we chatted about many of our similar interests including our need to write.  Kanta has a tenacity that I admire combined with energy and action.  When she puts her mind to a task it is virtually complete even as she thinks about it.  She also has a caring, loving soft side that translates well to her book “Love Poems.” 

This work is not about sappy, teenage infatuation, but rather takes our thoughts about love to a higher level, to a place where love encompasses all relationship – that with family, others, and That which we consider the Beloved, God.  In Love Poems Kanta has combined delightful, energetic drawings with “hand-written” quotes from well-known individuals such as Rumi, Hafiz, Saint Augustine and Gibran and tossed them both with her own poetry.  This poetic, artistic salad feeds us with wisdom, color and fun.  I greatly appreciated her analogy in “Socks:”

I’m glad we’re both the sort of sock

that doesn’t get lost in the machine.

We may spin a little,

but that’s just for fun.

We’re no-drama footwear, easy care.

100% natural fiber.

Comfortable, yet stylish.

Then she’ll take us back to awakening and connection in a quiet meditative piece entitled “Morning:”

Jasmine tea and toast and You

while my beloved sleeps,

exploring inner landscapes of his own.

She spends time speaking to a phenomenon that most of us are familiar with in meeting a person who carries burdens, anger or sadness in “Traveling Light.”

Yesterday I met a woman

in love with death and sadness

The poem relays the feeling of being sucked in, to taking on the shadow of the other person

I felt the stale sweet heaviness

like mordant gray smoke

And choosing to “Travel Light,”

“No thanks,” I told her with a smile

Kanta’s book of Love Poems is a book to turn to for a pick-me-up on a drab day, for a reminder of the connection we have to all others, for a smile and warm fuzzy before drifting off to dream,

letting go,

letting go,

. . .sliding on sunbeams

carried on moonrays. . .

*****Rene Schwiesow is a co-host of the popular South Shore poetry venue The Art of Words.  She writes a monthly arts column in The Old Colony Memorial and enjoys reading her work as feature poet and at open mics.