The Day Kal Aikens Streaked Down Main Street: and other poems

Robert Rowe’s poems tell stories. The high school student Kal Aikens who, in a carpe diem moment, dons a Halloween mask and streaks through the center of Bath, Maine. The skier Marcus Muller who schusses Tuckerman’s Ravine to impress a girl. The chatterbox grandmother who won’t stop telling stories even though people have stopped listening-but not Mr. Rowe. The athlete in The Perfect Search who swims from Maine to Canada in a quest to find life’s meaning. In short, Mr. Rowe’s characters attempt to strip off the veneer of everyday life to discover what it means to truly be alive. Mr. Rowe is happy to oblige. With his lyrical language, intricate off-rhyme schemes, and that rare ability to extend metaphors through entire poems, Mr. Rowe serves poetry that is surprising, fused with emotion, and is a pleasure to read. Most of all, his poems complete the sacred task of poetry: the ability to lift readers up, and take them to a sacred place where, in the words of one of Mr. Rowe’s characters: the skin never cuts, the neck never snaps, and the snow never stays this late in June. Readers of Robert Frost’s Birches and Mending Wall and E.A. Robinson’s Richard Cory and Miniver Cheevy will find a kindred spirit in the poetry of Mr. Rowe. This wonderful volume firmly places Mr. Rowe at the forefront of a Pre-Eliot movement in American poetry. I suspect this book will delight poetry lovers, but also attract new readers to poetry. - Michael Jones