Marawi and Other Poems

This poetry collection covers a lot of ground, geographically and thematically. It seems that, wherever Simeon Dumdum Jr. goes, he finds a poem to write, and that any place engages him in a conversation of wisdom-giving delight. His visit to the United States proved this—Salinas (California), the Grand Canyon, Columbus (Ohio), Vermont, Times Square. And clearly no subject escapes his eye, whether politics, philosophy, art, physics, movies, or religion. He records experience with artistically justified poems, occasionally using to maximum effect traditional verse forms—sonnet, villanelle, sestina, lai, sijo, ballad, copla de arte mayor, rime royal, canzone. How wonderful to meet on the pages of this book such varied personalities as John Steinbeck, Emma Stone, Lady Gaga, Emily Dickinson, Kobe Bryant, Duns Scotus, and Rodrigo Duterte. Indeed, in most every aspect, Dumdum’s collection, Marawi, is "world in which everything flies."