blessed: Modern Haibun on Almost Every Despair Paperback by Andrew Riutta 

Review by Ellen Lord

The cover of "Blessed: Modern Haibun on Almost Every Despair" by Andrew Riutta features a glowing white circular light at the top, resembling the moon. Below is a translucent glass with intricate light reflections. The title and author’s name are in white and yellow fonts.My old friend Charlie kept telling me about the poetry of Andrew Riutta. Now, Charlie isn’t a poet but he is featured in some of these poems…so I didn’t take him too seriously until I finally ordered Blessed. I usually take my time in reading a new poet…but I read this gorgeous work in one setting.
These are character-study poems of praise, heartache and redemption. Riutta uses achingly gorgeous descriptions of the ragged and raw side of life, including his own. I can imagine him sitting in an old-timey diner scribbling poems with his ‘tobacco-stained fingers’ on a coffee-stained yellow tablet.
Riutta’s poems are written as Haibun and I love his sage, original voice. Whether he pens a love story, an elegy or a dirge, this poet gives us a soul-view into the behavior and motives of folks who slouch along on the perimeter of society. He is a confessional poet with a deep soul-view into the bowels of alcoholism, addiction and recovery. That said…. there is a glow of quiet redemption throughout this brilliant book of poems.
As with all good Haibun, Riutta uses nature as Muse—birdsong & sky, bees chasing flowers and ‘clouds of every ilk’. He was raised in the NW regions of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and is a master at getting to the raw, wilderness howl of ‘almost every despair’.
As a behavioral health therapist & poet, I believe this is a ‘must read’ for everyone in recovery. These poems ring like little Buddha gongs in my heart.


Ellen Lord, author of Relative Sanity: Poems, published by Modern History Press 2023.

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