Benson Bobrick

Requiem: For the Innocents: And Other Poems: Softcover: ($15: ISBN: 978-1-68114-631-7; Hardcover: $20: ISBN: 978-1-68114-632-4; Kindle: $9.99; Books—Literature & Fiction—Poetry—Love Poems; Release: January 28, 2026; LCCN: 2026902564; Purchase on Amazon): Though esteemed as an historian, the author of this small, well-wrought collection is also a lyric poet of distinction.  Such a combination is rare, and it may be said that these poems claim a singular place for him in contemporary verse.  Though the style is formal, and generally links personal observation and experience to larger themes, the author is not a “New Formalist” exactly, but rather, as the late, great P.L. Travers remarked, a writer whose voice has “largeness and meaning—mythological meaning” in his exploration of archetypal ideas.  For, as the poems illuminate, it is those paradigmatic moments in our own experience—known to us from parable and myth—that heighten and define our lives.

“Bobrick’s work has largeness and meaning—mythological meaning—without which we cannot live.” —P.L. Travers, author of Mary Poppins

“A supremely active intelligence and wit that have left few human experiences closed to his keen observation, judicious comment, or fair assessment… His work is masterly.” —Composer George Rochberg, Annenberg Professor of the Humanities, University of Pennsylvania

“This book is a reminder of how much poetry can still do when guided by a keen ear and a disciplined imagination. A late subway ride becomes a meditation on anonymity and private longing. Holding a negative up to the light becomes a way of examining memory, love, and the divided self—what is seen, reversed, endures. There is wit and compression in these poems, along with others attentive to conscience, mystery and inward reckoning. The title piece is an ominous poem of great power, reminiscent of ‘The Second Coming’ by W.B. Yeats.” —Martin Elster, Co-winner: Thomas Gray International Poetry Competition, 2014; Winner: Helen Schaible International Sonnet Contest, 2022

Benson Bobrick earned his doctorate in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University.  His many books have been featured on the front page of The New York Times Book Review, widely praised in both academic and popular journals, and published in translation in sixteen lands.  In 2002, he received the Literature Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.  Two distinguished poets, Galway Kinnell and Robert Pinsky, served on the Award Committee that year.  Its other members were: Horton Foote, Hortense Calisher, Ann Beattie, and Russell Banks.  Recently, his poems, crafted over many years, have been accepted by numerous publications both here and abroad.  He lives in Vermont.