A selection of 101 poems by Rob Couteau. Over 40 of these poems were published in 15 different print and online journals between 1985 and 2020. The new work might be quite dark, a recognition of the loss that time inevitably entails, yet he also pursued moments of high beauty … There is a deep tenderness in these words, mingled with the sadness of age. If one goes back to the early poems one can find the tenderness there, too, as it is in his work as a case manager for the poor and homeless. There is much to admire in Couteau’s oeuvre, but this tenderness stands out among so many things that make reading his work clearly an important experience. - Poet, critic, and literary historian Ed Foster, founder of Talisman House, Publishers, and Talisman: A Journal of Contemporary Poetry and Poetics. from his Introduction to Selected Poems.