ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times

DATE: Sunday, March 31, 1996                 TAG: 9603290109
SECTION: BOOKS                    PAGE: F-5  EDITION: METRO 
                                             TYPE: BOOK REVIEW 
SOURCE: REVIEWED BY MARIE BEAN

BOOKMARKS

CIRCLE OF GRACE: In Praise of Months and Seasons. By Charles C. Finn. Scythe Publications, Inc. No price listed.

In one of the closing poems in this collection, author Charles Finn declares, "An entire year's an awesome thing," and that expresses the tone of the book. If you love life with all its beauty and ambiguity, you will enjoy this book.

Each month of the year is celebrated in this "Medicine Wheel of Months." Finn's aim is to help the reader "discover in the spirit journey, a month is vastly more than just a month."

Finn uses to good effect the tools of the poet's trade: metaphor, alliteration and irony as well as word play that is reminiscent of e.e. cummings. His creation-centered spirituality is strongly evident in his images of a good and beneficent creation where there is "plenitude" even "in emptiness." However, he does not neglect the dark side of life's journey around the sun, finding in the shadows something hopeful. "Perhaps apparent year of curse/is carrier of seed of light," he writes in "Bid Adieu To It Gently."

Not for Finn are opaque, esoteric musings that are inaccessible to the average reader. His images, finely crafted, are the common stuff of life.

Finn, originally from Cincinnati, now lives in Fincastle with his wife and their two children.

Marie Bean is a retired college chaplain.

Bookmarks is a regular feature of the book page that will focus on books, writers and literary events of local and regional interest and importance.

LENGTH: Short :   41 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  (headshots) Finn