Allen Strous • Tired

• Best Poetry Book for Spring Reading 2010 – The Montserrat Review •

About Allen Strous’ Of This Ground:

“I came from a heavy place. /Heavy people there, /not subtle minds,” declares “Proem” from Allen Strous’ Of This Ground. These poems insist on observing and living through the essentials. While there is much to like in the fierce insistence of the collection, I most enjoyed the rhythm, for example, in “Old House, Old Trees”: “Here before I was. /Magic is given, /just given, /all on one side. /I feel no obligation.”

It is refreshing these days of spreading capitalism and colorless urban life to read lines of poetry that insist on “summer music” of talking about trees, with attentiveness and affection. His feeling toward the natural world is genuine—but hardly naive. Looking at the branches he also looks “in the dark, in mind.”

“I notice the glow of the light-green,” this poet says. There is a dash of Dylan Thomas in this lyric, and much of Strous’ own wisdom in lines such as “Carpentry of these trees—/they are so simple.” But readers will quickly realize that on the page such simplicity is only seeming. It looks simple because a great deal of work was put into the words.
   • Ilya Kaminsky, Foreword, The Fifth Voice, Quartet Series, Toadlily Press

…Of This Ground…by Allen Strous…concerns itself with the modern pastoral…Strous’ strength is the rich content from which he draws his poems. There are lovely, closely observed moments in the fourteen poems from Strous in the chapbook.
   • Julie R. Enszer, Galatea Resurrects #4