Only Now

by Stuart Kestenbaum

''Many of the poems in Stuart Kestenbaum's Only Now (Deerbrook Editions, 2014) feel like poems Gregory Orr would write if he wrote narrative poems (some of the meditative and lyrical poems also feel like Gregory Orr poems), a number of the poems have the mythical feel of a Merwin myth-like poem, and some have the intimacy of a Jack Gilbert poem. These styles, among others, are what one would need to successfully write a carpe diem book of poems, and neo-romantic book of poems, at that.'' -- Tom Holmes,

75 pages, Paperback

First published May 10, 2014

About the author

Stuart Kestenbaum of Deer Isle, Maine, is the state's poet laureate and senior advisor at Monson Arts. Formerly the director of Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, Kestenbaum has authored five poetry collections as well as The View from Here, a collection of essays.

Reviews

[Jeffrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Stuart Kestenbaum’s Only Now is a rare accomplishment: a collection of poems that takes on the fragility of the world and our own mortality, and does so with unflinching directness and, most impressively, with wit and a sincere prayerfulness. Many of these poems are what I would call strangely hopeful warnings, elegies-in-advance. They worry about the world in ways that register the beauty of what is in danger of being diminished.
—Stephen Dunn
Stuart Kestenbaum is the Maine State Poet Laureate

http://www.deerbrookeditions.com/only...