The Now

The Now describes the unique, and sometimes baffling, moment in which we live, a time defined by an immediate future of online wonderments, fake news, multiple personalities, data economy, gene modification, and the rest of the exciting-and-yet-ominous “technology culture,” even as it’s a time when the urge to memorialize the past—to sing elegiacally—seems more important than ever.
Between poems that consider the disappearance of language in an age of digital/binary communication, and poems that mourn the disappearance of fellow poets and artists, this collection attempts to stand on a nano-second that looks both backward and forward in time: the ever-shifting “now.”

More Praise

Albert Goldbarth is a delight to read for his thought-provoking wit and deep intelligence, even as you suspect he is really enjoying pulling your leg.

The Lake Poetry

Albert Goldbarth writes poetry for those of us who give a damn.

Kansas Reflector

Albert Goldbarth just may be the American poet of his generation for the ages. Often humorous but always serious, Goldbarth combines erudite research, pop-culture fanaticism, and personal anecdote in ways that make his writings among the most stylistically recognizable in the literary world.

Judith Kitchen, The Georgia Review

There’s seemingly no field of knowledge so obscure nor slice of American life so cornball that it can’t give rise to a Goldbarth tour de force . . . Still, what makes Goldbarth’s best poems irresistibly memorable is not their dizzying profusion but their heroic efforts on behalf of memory itself. It’s this thirst to get everything down, to plumb the recesses of psyche and history alike, that gives his roustabout verse its authentic tenderness and tragi-comedic amplitude . . . He has been one of poetry’s most enthusiastic makers.

Poetry Magazine