Rogue Waves

About the Book

Rogue Waves examines those moments that are like their namesake, events that occur unexpectedly, that cannot possibly be real, that have disproportionate impact, and just as quickly are over. This book is all about ' . . . the keystone that dislodges, the chain that breaks . . . .' The implicit question is always, 'What happens when our pathway changes all of a sudden?' We find new ways to help us cope, accepting the paradox of a new reality, sometimes only checking to see what parts still work and then moving forward. Rogue Waves is about the abrupt shifts in our paradigms and perspectives and balance.

'Alan Birkelbach's thoughts and images, set in Wallace Stevens-like word play, spill so fast the reader must clutch or miss the depths and read again, or maybe yet again. But we're included. Whether it's Persephone in bunny slippers pulling Pluto out of bed, or little-boy Alexander the Great posing heroically before a Sears camera, he invites figures from myth, history, the streets he walks daily, to sit down with him and us at breakfast. Lurking beneath the scattered surfaces of seemingly random observations are moments when we find our canoe on the bottom, our self on the wrong street, rocks falling on us from Krakatoa's explosion, or stones from a pyramid we were stacking the wrong way.'-Frances Neidhardt

About the Author :
ALAN BIRKELBACH was the 2005 Poet Laureate of Texas. His work has appeared in journals and anthologies such as San Pedro River Review, Oak Bend Review, The Langdon Review, and Concho River Review. He has published six collections of poetry: Bone Song, Weighed in the Balances, No Boundaries, New and Selected Works, Translating the Prairie: Plano, Texas, in Words and Pictures, and Smurglets Are Everywhere (children's poetry). Alan is a native Texan and has never lived anywhere else. He currently lives in Plano with his wife, two cats, and a husky.

Review :
"Rogue Waves is such a great read!!! I loved the voice, the irony, and playfulness evident is so many poems. Alan Birkelbach explores the role chance plays in our life--how much of our life is controlled by destiny or, as the title of this work, implies 'rogue waves'--as the poet notes 'this is being swept along on the ley-line of circumstance...this is the distracted wasp, the intercepted letter.' Birkelbach finds truths in the most mundane objects: an out-of-order trash can, an outdoor grill, dishwaters. He determines that it is not he constant in the universe that determine what our lives become but 'the messiness of things that makes them perfect: the sugar falling from the cinnamon roll, the ice cream melting in the cone.' A truly wonderful unique work!"
--Kathryn E. Clement--Kathryn E. Clement "Birkelbach's thoughts and images, set in Wallace Stevens-like word play, spill so fast the reader must clutch or miss the depths and read again, or maybe yet again. But we're included. Whether it's Persephone in bunny slippers pulling Pluto out of bed, or little boy Alexander the Great posing heroically before a Sears camera, he invites figures from myth, history, the streets he walks daily, to sit down with him and us at breakfast. Lurking beneath the scattered surfaces of seemingly random observations are moment when we find our canoe on the bottom, our self on the wrong street, rocks falling on us from Krakatoa's explosion, or stones from a pyramid we were sacking the wrong way."
--Frances Neidhardt--Frances Neidhardt "In ROGUE WAVES, Alan Birkelbach 'assigns actuarial to random events' with such brilliant deftness and irony that the reader gasps, 'mouth open in permanent surprise.' We laugh as we watch Alexander the Great fidget in a photo shoot and imagine trading poet cards of Auden and Dickenson as if someone cares as much about poets as baseball players. We probe reason (existential questions) as he 'calculates angles, creates quick metaphors...searching for buoys to grasp like a faith...'as we grapple to understand the impact of 'rouge waves' and other life mysteries. 'No geologic plate is ever stable...' Alan's words assume 'ethereal mass maintaining things, hanging from invisible branches, so buoyant in the balance, ' that we can't wait for next image, the next gasp. Absolutely brilliant."
--Dr. Charlotte Renk--Dr. Charlotte Renk