The Lost Generation

About the Book

In the tradition of Edgar Lee Masters and E. A. Robinson, The Lost Generation echoes with voices groping in the congested confusion of a competitive and materialistic world. The characters in this volume struggle through the maze and mist of purpose and regret. Those that have discovered peace in their journey have done so through companionship and lessons learned through experience. Voices range from the contemporary who grope with baited needs “on the affluent avenue” and “the concrete tapestry” to Jesus with “weariness that feeds his despair” and Pontius Pilate, who at fifty, realizes that he has “wasted his life.” There are stuffed souls in this volume, cluttered with the debris and emptiness of glitter and neon lights. And there is contentment in the quiet wisdom of age. There is love and the loss of love. There is hate. There is abuse and bigotry, and there is the transient satisfaction of “the brightest gleam,” the black holes of drug and alcohol addiction, a world where “everything is for sale from Jesus to fresh air.” Like the poems of Masters and Robinson, many of the characterizations may not be popular, but they are human, complete with the weaknesses and tragedies of the big sell, where “fault is roaming in the gloom,” where the days of possibility “are like some old antique” and “the promise in conception is tossed among the dead.” The Lost Generation is a storybook of poems not soon to be forgotten.

About the Author

Michael Kasenow earned his BS in Geology from Eastern Michigan University in 1986, and his MS and Ph.D. from Western Michigan University. He has taught geology and hydrogeology at EMU since 1989. He has written ten books on the subject of groundwater analysis, and has many scientific publications to his credit, which include papers, monographs and software. Most of his scientific work has been published by Water Resources Publications, LLC, located at Highlands Ranch, Colorado (www.wrpllc.com). He has been writing poetry since the 10th grade.