Art of Enlightenment

What is so extraordinary about Art of Enlightenment is Wayne-Daniel Berard's artistry. In carefully crafted poems, he delivers emotional punches via surprising language and imagery. Whether he is writing about his adoptive mother's death, his adoptive father's dementia, or relationships with his children, stepchildren, and wife, Berard leaves us breathless.

For example, "Praying for my Mother" ends: I pray that she will stay / not one more moment from / her great, remothering birth. In "Daniel," the poet claims he doesn't have a new stepson, but a bonus son / the prize I never quite / expected. And in "Christine in my Crisis," he asserts I breathe / because of you my constant / occasion the o in each hello.

In essence, Berard offers us artistically enlightened love poems that we will return to again and again.

-Carolyn Martin, Ph.D., Poetry Editor of Kosmos Quarterly: Journal for Global Transformation

Wayne-Daniel Berard is an alchemist; his poems teach us to transcend loss while fostering hope and resilience. These poems remind me of Chagall's paintings: ever changing, luminous and timeless. In his "antheming," Berard gives us an antidote to despair, a pathway to possibility, a runway for faith.

-Deborah Leipziger, Co-Founding Editor of Soul-Lit

Wayne-Daniel Berard's Art of Enlightenment glows with insight and humanity. With topics ranging from intimate encounters to the complex challenges of our contemporary world, each poem is written with nuanced accessibility; seemingly simple phrasing is flecked with poetic light. Many of the poems show how our personal moments become universally relevant in all their poignant detail, and this is the case here with Berard's moving lines on the loss of his parents, and the discovery of his spiritual home. Overall, the collection bears witness to way poetry and pain weave through our human condition, infusing it with a mysterious and unexpectedly redemptive love, being light / just by being ("Christine in my Crisis"). This is poetry to cherish.

-Sarah Law, Poet and Editor of Amethyst Review