Views from along the Middle Way

by Thomas Centolella

In Thomas Centolella's newest book, he asserts the need "to make peace / with the indeterminate"--a journey that leads him from the tenuous nature of human intimacy into philosophical considerations from the East and the West. The "Middle Way" of the title derives from both Buddha and Dante: on one hand it's the middle ground between the extremes of asceticism and self-indulgence, on the other it's an "Inferno-"like overview of middle age. Against the background of daily life in San Francisco, Centolella examines the complications of love in its various incarnations: the deviousness of romance; the necessity for, and limits of, compassion; and ultimately, the "quality of attention and intention" which sustains the indefatigable possibility at the center of the search for "the Other. In a style that ranges from long-lined, highly detailed and conversation narratives, to shorter lyrical ruminations, to the distilled, quiet utterances of haiku, Centolella presents the flow of a consciousn