These poems blow me away. Tom writes with such honesty and power about the hard things in life, and the wonderful ones. His poems make me pause, sigh, grieve, and laugh. Even though they are lean and utterly without sentimentality, each one is also a kind of prayer. Absolutely fantastic, readable, and haunting. I love them.
This is a giant little book of poems that you will find yourself revisiting again and again. Thoughtful insights to the human condition, joyful, sad, humorous, a whole story in every poem on a cocktail napkin. Tom Bowlin says so much with so little, well done!
Tom's snippets are aphorisms as well as poems. You read these short pieces, and you think, "Yeah, that's me all right!" or "Yep, that's just like old so and so!" We all know the people these are written about, so reading Tom's book kind of taps you into little forgotten corners of your psyche, sometimes delightful, sometimes ironic, sometimes stuff you'd just as soon forget about. But always grabbing! A link to the human condition.
I read Tom's book about a year ago, just after the death of my husband. His words are calming, loving, and eased the pain of loss. And often I refer back to the words any time I'm needing a taste of what's real, what's loving, and what's so.
I've just started your book Love & Loss, and am almost struck dumb by its intimacy, the power of the simplicity and directness of your writing, and the courage you show in exposing yourself so fully. It pierces my heart. You've made your heart naked for all to see. What you're giving the world is truly wonderful.