A small masterpiece of prose and poetry

The Incoming Tide

By Cameron Pierce

 

Publisher: Broken River Books

Pub. Date: September 9, 2015

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

The Incoming Tide by Cameron Pierce is a small book of prose and poetry totaling only 73 pages. The prose is more like essays than fiction. To be precise they border somewhere in between. It is not really a story although the poem and essays culminate into a theme. At first it appears to be about fishing, a popular theme for Pierce lately. Yet it quickly morphs into a meditation on parenthood, maturity, coming of age; all those things that come up when one has children.

That may be part of the uniqueness of this book. With The Incoming Tide we are seeing a mellowing, almost Walden-esque Cameron Pierce. There is no Bizarro here. There is no horror or fantasy; none of the things that formed his earlier works except an insightful imagination. It is not just a mellowing author but one who is more thoughtful on relating to the "real world". The style is still there but...dare I say it?...more mature. This is not a maturity of going to childhood impulsiveness to adulthood thoughtfulness as much as a maturity of style that discovers it can meld to any shape, form or idea and still move people with precise and beautiful prose.

I like this Cameron Pierce. I liked the old one too but this one speaks to my own development and maturity as I grew up. It speaks of passions that never cease but also about the sharing of that passion and the good things that come with this sharing. The Incoming Tide is the type of book I could read over and over and find something new and important. Fortunately it is a short book so I can reread it often!

The Incoming Tide reads like a meditation. It is calm, exuberant, caring and intelligent. I think it is the kind of work people will see themselves in and will get what they need out of it. Most of all it is simply a beautiful and delightful work of prose and poems.