Reviewed by Rich Follett for Readers' Favorite

Mihai Brinas’ Invitation to Poetry is a heartfelt, inviting and accessible collection of personal poetic reflections on the many phases and faces of the human heart. Poetry, for Brinas, is the only true reflection of the human experience and the only true record of our shared human journey – a journey he does not want ever to see come to an end. From “searching for the light”: “have not hidden my eyes/from any sunrise/i hide my eyes from every sunset instead/i can hear the light crumble/when the night falls.”

Mihai Brinas’ Invitation to Poetry is an invitation to love, music, longing, hope, nature, magic and so much more. Brinas has a rare gift for adding a touch of the mystical to the ordinary, and this gift extends to his general world view, with delightfully infectious effects on the reader. In “flight with no limits,” Brinas writes: “now/i do not ride the motorbike/unless/i put under its saddle/a feather/so that/i can ride the gryphon/that i used to see in my childhood dreams.” It is a timely reminder that magic is all around us if we only look and grant ourselves permission to retain a sense of wonder as we journey through life.

That journey, however, is not without risk and not without heartache, as Brinas reminds us in “the road”: “after me unknown faces remain/and in front of me shadows and doubts/disoriented i understand/that the road/has chosen me.” Mihai Brinas has both a rare appetite for life and a poet’s eye and ear for recording its mysteries and miracles. An Invitation to Poetry is an invitation that every reader should eagerly accept.