Brenda Asterino’s Pathways is a meditation in verse. The cadence in her verses is the heartbeat of the soul. Her striking similes remind me of passages from the Puranas, the Bhagavad-Gita or Buddha’s wisdom. Brenda’s words resonate through the fibers and molecules within the body. Her approach to observation goes beyond the trans-lucid, fragile wings of the bees, the blueness beyond the horizon, the light behind closed doors and the soul within the heart. Life’s fragility is exposed, manifested like a teeter-totter as the poet questions the beliefs created by the cultures we’ve built around us, never sinking but leveling off on the face of this Earth. I am delighted by the element of surprise, the twirls of the humankind as the author beacons us to continue to dance the rhythm of life.
—Raúl Sánchez, City of Redmond Poet LaureateBr
In the opus Pathways: Walking Through Creation, author Brenda Asterino seems not only to have covered Earth but the universe too! That below us, that above us, and so much of what is in between constitute her writing pad. From as early as 1954 when so many thought so much of the world could be compartmentalized to 2020-2021 when the pandemic and protests awakened so many to our interdependence and lack of equity and inclusion, the poet has been recording her thoughts, feelings on innumerable subjects, some of which we surely have thought similarly and others that might not cross our minds in a lifetime. Much is fascinating here. And though you may choose different paths, it helps us all to know that so many paths exist, that a variety of these paths can help and not impede humankind at a time when we need much help and guidance in countless ways.
You won’t regret allowing Pathways to lead you up and down paths familiar and unfamiliar as you read the book. You’ll not forget some of these paths and may indeed choose to investigate some further and perhaps forge a path or few of your own.
—Georgia S. McDade, Author of Outside the Cave and Observations and Revelations: Stories, Sketches, and Essays
