Swimming Laps in August

The Author Says Of This Collection: My Poems Are My Life On Paper In Snapshots Of Course. I Try To Recapture The Emotions Of Remembered Scenes And To Render Them With A Moderately Subdued Passion. And From My Earliest Days I Muse--Sometimes Philosophically. Actually I Have Long Withheld Some Of These Poems Fearing They Are A Little Too Personal But With Age Comes Loss Of Inhibition Perhaps A Discreet Loss. I Hold Hands With The Child In Me Youth . . . All The Me'S None Of Which Vanishes From Whatever I Am. Not That I Am Proud Of All Of Them But I May Be More Accepting Of Them Now Than I Sometimes Was. Barlow Looks Back On Careers As Wwii Celestial Navigator In The Air Force (In Service 1943-6) Presbyterian Minister (1950-) And Educator. Now An Emeritus Professor Of Philosophy (College Of Staten Island) City University Of New York (Retired In 1995) He Was A Professor Of Religion At Columbia University 1966-72 And Also Served As A Dean Of Summer Session At The University Of Minnesota 1964-66 And Columbia 1966-71 As Associate Dean Of Faculty At Staten Island Community College A Predecessor To The College Of Staten Island 1972-76. Earlier He Served As A Campus Minister In Eugene Oregon (1954-60) And In Pittsburgh Pa. (1960-62) And Still Earlier As Parish Minister In New York Tennessee And Alabama. In 1950-51 He Taught English Literature At East Tennessee State University In His Hometown. He Has Written Poems Since Boyhood. Here He Has Selected Over Seventy And In Some Cases Re-Edited Them. The Themes Include Love And Marriage Parenting One'S Own Childhood And Life In Community. There Are Poems About Love And Desire Elegies And Questionings--That Are Sometimes Philosophical. Here Are A Few Excerpts:--About An Eleven Month Old Son: He Salutes Me And Gives Me A Smile Like /Eternal Blessing And A Handful Of Straw /He Has Pulled From The Broom.