No Edges on a Sphere

Karina Lutz's latest collection of poems, two epic ekphrastic poetry sequences and a section of shorter poems, address the tangled issues of war, land "ownership," colonization, genocide, and the war on earth itself. The poems trace those cultural diseases through decades of struggle to heal a country, the United States, of its lethal militarism, Meanwhile, the peace and justice movements have responded, symbolized by the Tibetan Wheel of Time (kalachakra) mandala coming down from the Himalaya at the same time westerners go to space and see Earth whole. Her home country has been at war Lutz's whole life, yet her poems awaken a keen sense of the peace and beauty of earth that concur regardless. The poems honor that peace without denying the horrors of war. The book is a deep bow to the peacemakers she has known and walked along with on a peace pilgrimage: the final poem envisions it may one day encircle the whole earth.