Introduction
Over thirty years ago I was introduced to Laurence Lieberman via his poem “The Coral Reef ” in a contemporary American literature class. Even if you’ve never been diving before, there is an excitement to Lieberman’s underwater action—the peril that lay beneath the surface—death waiting in all its beauty, all the metaphors for so many things in life, and within the poem there was the draw of the ocean depths, the documentary of salt-water dangers, the risk when entering a world where he/she doesn’t belong, the seeming inability to pull away and return to the surface. As an experienced spearfisher, Lieberman understood the jeopardy of taking one long breath “… to go deep, to die into life, to lie there in rich / corrosion … breaking down and entering every canal and cell … to every pocket of life.” Lieberman knew better than most that when entering that “pocket of life” it makes one’s life more interesting and survivable. As James Dickey said: (paraphrased) If you ever get bored with your life, risk it. Lieberman, who is a Dickey scholar and was Dickey’s friend, understood this. There is no life without risk, and the greatest pleasure may be found from the risks taken. For Lieberman, it is as simple as returning to the sea, to the primal urges of giving up all that is man in order to be, in the truest sense, a part of the ocean.
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