Language Barrier, Poems by Bob Stanley

Bob Stanley’s Language Barrier is a collection of decades’ worth of poems that ponder, reminisce, and celebrate his travels to China, the coronavirus pandemic, the California landscape, climate change, and more. His words carry you through time, from the earliest evidence of the written word, to ancient Chinese civilizations, to childhood memories in the Central Valley, to yesterday in the garage, and then beyond, to the imagined? Note to future.” Whether it’s through free verse, iambic pentameter, or prose, this collection of poems showcases Stanley’s love of words and their inherent musical meter and the boundless ways to express his take on life’s experiences.

Sample Poems by Bob Stanley

“Language is no barrier to our enjoyment of the experiences Bob Stanley has distilled and decanted in these poems. His keen eye for detail takes us first on a passionate tour of China and then on a reminiscent journey through America, described through the prism of many poetic forms. As he says, 'I could write with both care and abandon,' and he has done just that. Here you will find tragedies in miniature, but also wonder at nature and the past. Through it all runs Stanley’s raconteurial charm, a Poundian respect for the world of the senses, and a tireless yearning for song: ‘keep the discord in the chord, / sing what’s hard to sound soft.’ The result, in Stanley’s own words, is ‘peach-perfect.’”—Brad Buchanan

“In Language Barrier, Bob Stanley shows he’s learned how to climb those walls; how to break through. He finds no barrier to his love for love, for music, for our natural world. Troubles? We all have them, of course. But Stanley knows what ‘amounts to nothing/in the face of words we hold inside, lost words.’ Bob has unearthed and re-imagined many of these ‘lost words,’ and shares them with us in this collection. Enjoy!”—Kathleen Lynch

ISBN 978-1625494634, 100 pages

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Also by Robert “Bob” Stanley:

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