Spirit Vessels: By Dennis Formento

Spirit Vessels: By Dennis Formento: Foothills Publishing, 2018, 78 pages. ISBN: 978-0-921053-27-9.

Spirit Vessels is the first chapbook that I’ve read from Dennis Formento, who lives in Slidell, Louisiana and is active in the local poetry community here. I’ve not met him personally but was interested in reading some of his work since I’ve heard good things about it from other local poets.

Spirit Vessels is Formento’s most recent collection and is a substantial work. The poems are free form and often leap from image to image. Some words that occurred to me frequently as I read through the pieces here were “jazz” and “improvisation.” A few pieces struck me as having surrealistic elements, but many more are what I would call “nature” poems. Local Louisiana elements are common but expand far beyond the usual swamps and gators. And there are plenty of references to natural environments outside of Louisiana. Most of this “nature” material is not pretty nature but reflects the damage done by pollution, coastal erosion, and climate change. These are not, for the most part, happy poems, but they present a realistic, if dramatic, view of the changing world environment.

I don’t want to suggest that such nature poems make up the entirety of the collection. There is plenty of variety here. But it was these pieces, such as “Water,” “Poem: ‘Useless’” and “Bayou Paddle,” that were the most memorable and effective to me. If you'd like to purchase a copy of the book, the publisher's site is here: 

There are at least two more collections by Formento that I know of, Looking For An Out Place, and Cineplex. I’ve got copies of both of these and since I certainly enjoyed Spirit Vessels very much I’ll be looking forward to reading and reviewing these as well.