The poems of L.G. Hertz cover a range of subjects — from Opera to Boating, from Sculpture to Astronomy — but they share a common intent: to reveal the unexpected parallels in life. Hertz's rhyming poetry is traditional in style and easy to read, but it is full of paradoxes; it links together different areas of experience, and often combines things that at first seem to be incongruous, for example, The Ibis and the Tapestry, Hiking and Reading, and Auditions of Red.
Startling resemblances come to light in a many contexts: Opposites attract, similarities diverge, rivals collude, and the everyday objects that surround us — clocks, spoons, chairs, jewelry — take on a life of their own (Alarm Clock, The Bedazzled Stag).
One of L.G. Hertz's favorite subjects is American English with its quirks and delights, and his light-hearted humorous poems — such as My English-Speaking Dog, A Quartet, and Summer Reading — show a special appreciation for students, especially those who are learning English as a second language. The history of English is a source of fun in Sleeping Beauty, The Bubbling Vernacular, amd Oxen and Children.
Hertz continues the tradition of English love poetry in the humorous Degenerate and the low-key Is Love an Equation? The theme of the Lovers' Quarrel is retold in three variations: with compassion in A Figure of Porcelain, with irony in Adam's Ribs, and with hard-boiled brevity in Closer to Speech.
Many of Hertz's poems focus on art and art history, including design, architecture, and sculpture (Danish Cabinet, Shibumi and the Baroque, Bas-Relief). Architecture in particular was for Hertz a mirror of human emotions, and within the varied settings of his poems — museums, kitchens, offices, and harbors — images mix the outer and inner world (In a Draft, The Elevator Banks of the Lethe Building). Familiar landmarks are seen in a new light (The Hotel St. Bonaventure); foreign locales are inseparable from American culture (Remake), and no matter where the reader finds himself, the scene can be both familiar and startling (The Night the Seaside Funhouse Burned).
Hertz's modern tales in rhyme, led by Nijinsky's Horse, are for the entertainment of readers who love traditional storytelling. Legends and myths are retold in An Incident in New York Harbor, The Ginkgo or Maidenhair Tree, and other tales combining traditional poetic forms and contemporary content.
Hidden affinities lie at the heart of all of the poems of L.G. Hertz, and he returns again and again to the theme that antiquity is inherent in modernity (Convivial), and religious faith inherent in science (Equilibrium, Horsepower).
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