{"product_id":"9781477172735","title":"Swimming Laps in August: and Other Poems","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe author says of this collection:\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e“My poems are my life on paper, in snapshots of course. Â I Â try to recapture the emotions of Â remembered scenes and to render them with a moderately subdued passion. Actually, I Â have Â 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 Â with the child in me, youth, . . . all the me’s, none of which vanishes from whatever I am. Â Not that I am proud of all of them, but I may be more accepting of them now than I sometimes was.” \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarlow looks back on careers as WWII celestial navigator in the Air Force (in Â service, 1943-6), Â  Â Presbyterian minister (1950-), Â and educator. Â Now, an Â emeritus professor of philosophy Â (College of Â Staten Â 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 Â Columbia, 1966-71, as Associate Dean of Faculty, at Staten Island Community College, a predecessor to the Â College of Â Staten Island, 1972-76. Â Earlier, he served as a campus minister, in Eugene Oregon (1954-60) Â and in Pittsburgh, Pa. (1960-62), Â 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHe has written poems since boyhood. Â Here he has selected over seventy. The themes include love and marriage, parenting, one’s own childhood, and life in community. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHere are a few excerpts:--\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbout an eleven month old son: \"He salutes me and gives me a smile like Â \/eternal blessing and a handful of straw \/he has pulled from the broom.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAbout the lonely child living in the midst of remote relatives and preoccupied neighbors: \"Crowded \/by circles of kin \/neighbors \/fieriest stars \/the nearest \/distant ones \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \/more inviting \/Distant all . . .\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the title poem, which he actually composed while swimming, Â shortly before a birthday in his sixties, he sees the water stretching out like a magic carpet, yet can’t free himself from the thought of all he has not done, the books he has not read and of course the cruelty of time’s passing; Â  he ends the poem saying, Â in rhythm with his strokes:: \". . . Â miles like inches the carpet \/flies it flies \/into years old how many now.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAs his ninety-one year old mother lay dying twelve hundred miles away, he woke from a dream and captured it in this poem: Â  \"Lady wrapt in ink blue \/coat in soft lamplight \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\/kerchief about your head \/all set to leave \/us silent poised \/silhouetted \/on the edge of the chaise longue \/that reaches back to the beginning\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\/of time . . . .\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAn elegaic example is a little poem in memory of the environmntalist, Margaret Mee: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"Forest seraph \/pleading for it \/for Amazonia’s orchids \/for blossoms that open at night \/pleading as for a child \/about to be taken\"\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmong the poems about love is this one, from a fairly early date: \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\"A portrait \/come alive \/to my Beau of Bath \/Awkward as sixteen\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\/both of us \/innocent as five \/I fell into her eyes \/certain Â I was received\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ethe moment never dies\".\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn the fourth grouping of poems, which the author calls Orbit, we find this one about the meaning of baseball: the title Â alludes to Protagoras’ saying, “Man is the measure of all things”: \"Reach Â into the Â air \/and stop with your hand \/a white sphere \/like Â the moon \/See it again rocketing \/from your undulant salute \/up the blue and glint of the sky \/arching against outfield \/green and the dust that edges \/diamond and scurrying feet \/Take a Â well-formed proposition \/of once growing wood \/Extending yourself Â \/you Â hit\u003cbr\u003ethe ball \/Running Â you Â celebrate\".\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eBarlow, known to his friends also as a humorist, includes some humor, though it is often mixed with a bit of pathos, Â here, in such poems as \"Man in a Tub,\" \"Interrupted,\" \"Hope,\" \"Odd Moments,\" \"Sunday in the Thirties,\" \"At Waterloo Village,\" \"Altar Call,\" \"over a lost fountain pen,\" Â  and \"Vox Humana.\" \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn his Preface he invites the reader to look for common ground and to enjoy reading the poems.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Xlibris Corporation","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47180474614000,"sku":"9781477172735","price":3.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781477172735_p0.jpg?v=1763612209","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781477172735","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}