It’s been a long time since I sat and read poetry for the pure joy of reading poetry.  TS Elliot in college, of course, and e.e.cummings, and more recently Billy Collins, but none of that was anything like the gritty melancholy of Kenneth Baron’s verse.

 Kind of like “guy poetry” – about “guy” stuff.  The mysteries of fatherhood, drinking at a dim bar in the afternoon, chasing sex, chasing marriage, losing marriage, looking for a job.  Even building a deer fence becomes material for a poem.

 He tosses in golf, baseball, jogging, Shakespeare, Hemingway, and Ravel. There’s poetry written for his daughter, an unborn son, a college professor, and of course, for his readers.  He writes about clothes dryers and France and his evening commute. Baron finds something to write about everywhere.

 I think that is the mark of a good writer. One doesn’t sit down and make time to write; he is writing all the time. That’s a good thing for us, and I recommend you discover him immediately.