Exploring the Limits of Man with Brion K. Hanks’ Poetry

February 11th, 2023 1:00 am | by Blog Contributor Posted in Poetry

The prolific poems of Brion K. Hanks, anthologized in Tales of a Traveler and When The Rose Fades, explore the limits of man and his place in the world.

Brion K Hanks has been an avid writer for many years, pondering on the subjects of love and loss in the mediums of poetry and prose. His works are testaments and acknowledgments to God as his Creator, and it is apparent in his writings. Exploring life and death through his works as ways of coping with loss and grief, Hanks discovered that words help alleviate the burdens of life, healing spiritual wounds, replacing fear with faith, and making an overall positive difference in the relationships people have with others. In other words, right human relations.

Loss and grief, positivity and negativity, life and death, these dualities are part and parcel of life, and poetry that touches on these themes is as old as the field of language and literature itself.

Following in this tradition of literary themes, Hanks’ words are written with the intention of hopefully inspiring and eliciting rumination and introspection. They are meant to offer comfort and reveal honesty and humanity.

Several of Brion K Hanks’ poems are poems of love—love in its most transcendental—they speak of agape, the love that is deep and profound and can only be the reflection of God’s love for all of humanity. These poems of love are for readers to reevaluate their relationships with those around them and help them see things in a gentler light and cherish life more.

Love is a brilliant warmth that everyone should have a share and an opportunity to partake in—and Hanks primarily writes so readers can discover that warmth and the healing power of poetry.

Tales of a Traveler in Poetry and Prose

Hanks’s most recent anthology of writing is Tales of a Traveler in Poetry and Prose: Along the Road Before Me, which was first published in the December of 2021. It is a collection of writings (200 poems and a 9-page essay) that spans almost five decades and fills up 208 pages. Tales of a Traveler is full of musings on the passage of time from past to future, through engaging life fully by way of loving and losing. These works embody courage and character and seek to champion positive life values and virtues.

Tales of a Traveler hinges on this view that in this life, in this realm of possibility and physicality, everyone, all peoples of all creeds and ethnicity—they are each a traveler following a guiding star only they can see and that each, and every one of these travelers have a story brewing inside their hearts.

It is the intention of Hanks in Tales of Traveler that readers start to ask themselves daily what they can do to prevent negativity from growing in the world and go beyond the limits of man to expand right human relations.

When the Rose Fades

When The Rose Fades is Hanks’ first poetry anthology, which was first published in 2000. It came about as a consequence of sharing a bit of his poetry with a close friend, Rich Carpenter. The samples of his writing had been about having lost a loved one and a friend, together with observations and thoughts while Hanks still lived in Arizona. It was the potency of his writing that convinced Carpenter to propose to Hanks the idea of what would become When The Rose Fades.

Starting with the first verses, he had shown Carpenter, When The Rose Fades was conceived with the theme of death in mind, with the intention of dealing with living and dying. This anthology of heartfelt and meditative poetry was written with the noblest intentions of helping people have closure and feel comfortable as the moment of their final hour comes; it is also for those readers who have lost someone in their lives and are coping with their loss.

“If today is the future we created yesterday, how do we proceed with each tomorrow?” is the premise of When The Rose Fades. It is all about acknowledging the brevity of life, the limits of man, and the importance of filling in that narrow gap with as many positive memories and achievements as you can. It is about living a life that you are satisfied with and you can be thankful to God for.

To know more about the healing power of poetry, please visit www.brionkhanks-poetry.com.