Robert Martens’ book of “little creatures” must be read with caution, for inside its covers is a jumble tumble playground of poems, a riff on the existentialism of insects, creatures of twilight, and six-chambered souls. And oh, for a thousand legs to flee the flea, the fly, the rat, the snake, and crickets with moods. Shelled things and slimy, furry, and wondrously winged. Blood junkies that buzz in the night, hump pump the skin, devour and die. Humans, too, appear, transfixed by the tickle and creep of image and metaphor, the poet, line after line, illumining the sadness of things. The glory.

robert martens was raised in a Mennonite refugee village, experiencing there the kindness and cruelty of face-to-face community. He discovered the greater world when he attended Simon Fraser University during its years of student protest. Robert then settled into the “little life” of Abbotsford, BC, where he writes and edits. His poems are a diminutive challenge to the cosmic forces of time and space, war and peace.

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