Review: Entropy Loop & Other Poems by Jeffrey Heath

An ambitious but unassuming collection of quietly brilliant verse, Entropy Loop & Other Poems by Jeffrey Heath runs the gamut of raw human experience, transcending the tropes and familiar emotions of contemporary poetry.

Cascading through visceral recollections of heartbreak tangled in abstract metaphor, these pieces explore the mercurial landscapes of memory. At first glance, it feels as though the author is processing grief and uncertainty right along with each reader, while hesitantly striving toward a more hopeful future. Using simple, accessible language to express profound and existential feeling is the telltale sign of a masterful poet, and Heath demonstrates that timeless skill in every piece.

“The Golden Ratio” resonates with wisdom and old desire, capturing universal truths of connection and distilling them through personal experience: “The unseen math of longing solved in every fingertip, as if love were not / chaos, but sequence.” “The One that Breathed Between Us” captures the slow death of a relationship that occurs long before the final separation; each line slices painfully for anyone who has felt that sort of chasm grow with one they loved deeply: “I remember you once said, that love was / an orchard, ripe and impossible to own / Now the trees bend like old men, and no fruit grows.”

One of the most memorable pieces in the collection, “Depression,” overflows with potent lines and encapsulated emotion, demanding a second read almost immediately, particularly for those who recognize the dull sting of unnamed grief: “There is no anesthesia for this. / Depression is a surgery / performed while fully awake.” In this poem and others, Heath lays his soul bare, revealing shameful insecurities and intrusive thoughts with unflinching honesty, traversing realms of punishment and prayer, delight and despair, embracing a nebulous style that makes each poem feel poignant and malleable to a reader’s own life.

Every poem is not so personal, such as “Dali, On His Deathbed…” – a shiver-inducing piece reflecting on infamous heroes of history, probing the binary of creative energy and destructive potential between two artistic titans of the 20th century. Its final line hits especially hard: “You are my catastrophe.” Closing a piece in a powerful way is one of the great struggles of poetry, but Heath’s end lines are consistently haunting, penetrating, and memorable without leaning on melodrama.

The very last lines of the collection reflect the cyclical sentiment of the title: “hands open / heart unclenched / ready to try again.” Despite the litany of pain and grief and regret Heath presents, he acknowledges that time moves in but one direction, embracing the inherent opportunities of continued existence.

While there is thematic consistency across the collection, each poem stands tall on its own, and one would be hard-pressed to find a weak link among them. The variety of formatting and design also maintains dynamism from start to finish, veering from more structured narratives to experimental streams that veer into surrealism and abstract thought. Throughout, myriad manipulations of punctuation, enjambment, and visual presentation inspire patience, curiosity, and close reading.

These subtle but evocative poems do demand a reader’s focus and engagement, but the path to unearth the poems’ philosophical diamonds is exceptionally rewarding, as the poet has interposed meaning in each piece with sagacious grace.