Continual Notions, by Paul O. Jenkins

Poetry, chapbook, 28 pages, from Bottlecap Features. These poems betray the nag of uncertainty and self-doubt, explore love lessons, and present an admiration for the cycles of nature. They are the work of a middle-aged man who struggles on a daily basis to reconcile the persistence of foolish hopes with uncompromising reality, misses the prairies of his native Minnesota, longs to believe in a higher power, and strives to smile at his foibles as each passing day humbles him. In form, the pieces vary between formal and free verse and were inspired by the likes of Theodore Roethke, Philip Larkin, Seamus Heaney, Jean L. Connor, Linda Pastan, Ted Kooser, and Dylan Thomas. Professor Paul O. Jenkins is the University Librarian at Franklin Pierce University in Rindge, New Hampshire. The son of an English professor, Jenkins grew up surrounded by great books and remains dazzled by the inventiveness of writers from Ammons to Yeats.