Maintenance

<p>I've written before that William Trowbridge is one of America's best and wittiest poets: funny tender wry compassionate full of insight </p><p> and rueful understanding. Having just read his new collection <em>Maintenance</em> I'm pleased to say that I was right. Whether he tackles being a boy or a teenager being the new guy in a tin can factory or a college teacher on the low end of the adjunct scale Trowbridge tells it like it was and like it is: occasionally grim but replete with humor and such good writing that if it wouldn't scare my wife I'd stand up from my desk and cheer. </p><p></p><p>-Charles Harper Webb author of <em>Sidebend World</em></p><p></p><p><em>Maintenance </em>is a sharp funny and unflinching look at American life past and present. William Trowbridge writes with clear-eyed wit and deep compassion turning our everyday messes and momentary wins into acrobatic virtuosic art. These accomplished poems remind us that maintenance-of language of history of ourselves-is both necessary and absurd. A wise wry and humane collection Trowbridge remains one of America's most engaging and generous poetic voices. A joy to read!</p><p></p><p>-Elizabeth Powell author of <em>Atomizer</em></p><p></p><p>William Trowbridge's newest collection of poems <em>Maintenance</em> grapples with the Sisyphean tasks of upkeep and repair against the inevitable </p><p> vicissitudes of entropy decay complacency and despair. <em>Maintenance </em>considers what it means to be entangled within the violent machineries </p><p> of war industry capital and stuck Groundhog Day-esque in cyclical patterns that reveal the foibles and failings of human nature. With his trademark piercing wit and searing intelligence Trowbridge peels back the histories we collectively seem doomed to repeat-familial national global. These poems navigate childhood memory </p><p> labor and constructions of American masculinity. Trowbridge raises a glass to both the folly and horror of the end times in elegiac and </p><p> gracefully rendered lines-ruefully hilarious ekphrastic and elegant-confirming the enduring power of art in the midst of absurdity.</p><p></p><p>-Lee Horikoshi Roripaugh Author of <em>Tsunami vs. the Fukushima 50</em></p>