finding home

<p><em style=color: rgba(255 255 255 1)></em><em>Choose a barstool order a merlot or two be easy talk small</em> invites the speaker into Robert Martens' new collection <em>Finding Home</em>. Whether in a bar or coffeeshop or teahouse these poems are not small and do <em>contain hazardous material</em>-remembrance witness social and political commentary the economy the natural world philosophy and eternity (<em>or is it entropy</em>?) with echoes of Leonard Cohen's later work and also Patrick Friesen's <em>Songen</em>. From lyric to the meter of song lyrics in free verse prose and long poem form Martens' range is deep and wide in this <em>dark and luminous</em> volume. An eavesdropper and participant/observer Martens gathers insights from ordinary people: a chatty bartender a bearded man on a bicycle a beautiful blonde brilliant liquor store clerk a bar or cafe patron and more. Follow his lead; listen and learn then let the poems carry you home. </p><p><br></p><p>This nine-part poetry collection slips from past into present while touching down feather-quiet in Ukraine St. Petersburg Greece Ireland and Montana to gather poems before returning repeatedly to the poet's Fraser Valley home where walking the dyke around a blue lake or over a beer or while sipping a whisky or drinking a dark cup of coffee he sets down the words. Poems are the transport with which Martens revisits the Holodomor Holocaust the Bolshevik Revolution his global travels the meaning of life and the pandemic of 2019. </p><p><br></p>