Kaleidoscope of Colors is not a poetic masterpiece. Cozzi’s poems are not written with the deep introspection or eloquence of [insert favorite poet here] but the collection is heart-warming and moving in its own poeticism. In fact, the works I found most moving weren’t standard poems at all. They were the intermittent stories that he so graciously shares between them.
He’s unashamedly personal (a la “Robert and Jerome” and “Dog Tag”), grappling with issues we all experience in our own lives (“I’ll Never Be Enough” and “My Back Door”), and shares observations of lives seemingly not his own (“Ed and Gabby” and “Returning Soldier”). By the end of the collection, I felt that I had gotten to know Robert Cozzi on at a deeply intimate level. Few writers are capable of establishing such a connection with their readers but this is what I believe allowed him to offer such a carefully curated collection that any reader can find inspiration in.
There’s a continuous balance between melancholy and hope that Cozzi expresses through the imagery of “Mystery” and simplicity of “Distance”, among others. You may not be moved deeply, but you will be moved. Perhaps you will find your center, your healing, your inner beauty, your eureka, your “Elusive Missing Piece”, your whatever you need. It is as if he is telling the reader to “Take me strapped upon your back / And I will follow and help you / Reach your dreams.”
Through works like “Julian”, he tells his own stories while offering life lessons and insights. What the reader does with them is not his business but his vision is not lost. Each poem subtly tells the reader to go out and make a better world for us all – a little at a time. I hope this was part of his reason for publishing.
H O L L Y + O A T E S 