This is my favorite book by Mel Glenn. I feel like I am at the table at his dinner party. The guests around the table are his muses, famous writers all, and his poems are his side of the conversation. I see how the authors move him, how they inspire him, and where their thoughts intersect. I feel I am visiting with Dorothy Parker, Walt Whitman, Robert Frost, Albert Camus and others. Glenn expresses his thoughts artfully with many lines so well-crafted that I feel lifted up, as if by beautiful music. -Toni Cortese, Executive Leadership Coach, Former Wall Street Executive
Mel Glenn takes us back in time and around the world in a grand literary, poetic road trip, paying homage to famous wordsmiths who inspired him and countless others. His poignant references range from Emma Lazarus, imagining how Glenn's father felt at seeing the Statue of Liberty, to Wordsworth's concern centuries ago "how the world is too much with us," to his tenuous ties to Judaism during a visit to the Anne Frank House in Amsterdam. Glenn frolics with the literary greats in whose footsteps he follows on tip-toes, demonstrating the joys, the agony, and the power of the written word.
-Sam Friedman, Journalist, Researcher, Renaissance man
In his latest book, Mel Glenn looks at life, not through colored glasses, but through an intriguing lens of what life has to offer. In part I, "Of Writers," he interacts with the work and lives of well-known poets and writers, relating to them as if they were best friends. In part II, "Of Craft," he opens up to share his sense of what poems should have or be. We come to see how his poems are conceived and the way they reflect his vision of life. This book, in both his communication with past and present authors, and his discussion of craft, helps us to regain perspective in these difficult times and value what we still have.
-Ferida Wolff, Author
