Gypsy Soul: R.G.V. Texas Poetry by I.A. Croesus
Like the patchwork quilt its cover connotes, Gypsy Soul: R.G.V. Texas Poetry (B&N Press) by I.A. Croesus combines poetry, photography and inspiring quotes to build a multifaceted picture of one poet’s mind and soul. Here we can find musings on nature, the cosmos, the divine, life, music, literature, and the places called home, whether it be a physical location or seated in a deep connection to distant ancestors.
Croesus writes in short verse, rarely exceeding eight lines, preferring to focus on a single idea at a time and then returning to the theme in other poems to explore other angles. This conciseness, along with simple sentence structures, makes his work very easy to read and comprehend. But such ease and simplicity do not mean the poems are shallow in meaning. As with much short verse, the reader is left to ponder the lines, an island in a sea of white space, before moving on to the next poem.
A COLLECTION OF SHORT-FORM VERSE
Croesus is at his best when he uses this form to its greatest effect. This includes the aphoristic “First Pronoun” (She said do not seek / truth where it cannot / be found. / Instead seek for honesty in / the first pronoun.), the slyly humorous wordplay of “Decay” (The reason was not enough. / I had dreams that / resembled the letter K. / The moral fabric of society / was now in decay.), the sense of evaporation and loss in “Dream” (In a dream I saw / a friend. / Then I never saw him / again. / In my dream he smiled / and laughed. / I also smiled but failed / to ask where we were / at.), and in the magical and mysterious “Music Quotes” (The musical notes came to life. / They danced until they touched / the sky. / The pianist smiled as he / witnessed the musical notes. / The once lonely music / ended up as quotes.).
Among the poems in this collection are those that harken back to an ancient, ancestral time, as in “Tenochtitlán,” which describes the great empire built / upon a lake. / The lost season of the / feathered snake, or “Náhuatl,” in which the beauty of the cosmos over water prompts words in a language more adept to such a mystical, eternal experience: La gente empieza hablar / en su idioma náhuatl. (Translation)
POETRY OF PLACE (AND SPACE)
As in the latter poem, there are a handful of Spanish-language pieces in the book, of which “Seres Celestiales” is a stand-out entry: …Al final simplemente somos polvo / de estrellas o tal vez / al momento de dejar de / existir, nuestras almas se retiran / a las galaxias y forman / parte de las estrellas que / brillan sobre nuestro mundo. (Translation)
As the subtitle of the book — R.G.V. Texas Poetry — suggests, much of the nature poetry is set in the Rio Grande Valley, and Croesus provides us with many photographs of the region, enhancing our visualization of what he describes in verse. The poems themselves can be seen as snapshots, creating a collage of words and images that conjure a sense of place, whether in a concrete sense or a more mystical one.
If you enjoy simple, straightforward verse with deeper echoes of meaning, or poems that contemplate humanity’s place in nature and the cosmos, you may find that Gypsy Soul touches your own.
Gypsy Soul is available for purchase at Barnes & Noble.
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About I.A. Croesus:
I.A. Croesus is a bilingual poet who lives in Texas. His previous collection, El Duque de Reynosa: Poesia sobre un Magistrado was published in 2021.
