“If The Daily Show were a book of poetry, it might be Stanzas in America insofar as Gilbert Allen dares to reveal the laugh-out-loud absurdity of moments (and people) in our news and history. But as Allen criss-crosses America in this collection, he also finds, like a Kuralt, stories that charm us, and, like a Murrow, stories that enlighten us, and, like a Cooper, stories that sadden us. Withal. Allen is mostly very much like himself in these stanzas that take us on a tour with a writer who cannot help but see the poetry in his country and his life.”

— James Penha, Editor, New Verse News

“...The planet turns to poetry / while it darkens — or at least light verse….” Evoking and recontextualizing the work of the great modernists, these poems are classic Gilbert Allen gems — rich in soul, formal yet never predictable, incisive and ethically rigorous in their social critique, yet tender towards those caught in the world’s cogs and gears as Allen examines contemporary American culture and its historical foundations, interweaving these explorations with poems of personal narrative. The humor in this collection is often inextricable from the pathos. “Some songs you just can’t get out of your head,” Allen remarks — you’ll feel the same about these poems. 

 — Claire Bateman, author of The Pillow Museum

Gilbert Allen’s poetry compassionately explores American identity and culture through vivid, often provocative imagery. In his poem “The Great American Sonnet,” Allen subtly invokes William Carlos Williams’s “The Red Wheelbarrow” on his way to sonnetizing both Marianne Moore and Bette Midler as the Divine Miss M along with some Ku Klux Klansmen ironing their sheets.  He addresses fascism in “Once More, The Sound of Music” by twisting the song lyric: “the hills are alive with the sound of Auschwitz.” Stanzas in America explores what it means to live in our world of contradictions.  Allen crafts poems that are both culturally incisive and deeply personal, his voice resonating with heartfelt humanity. 

— Barry Harris, Editor, Tipton Poetry Journal

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Gilbert Allen is the author of eight collections of poems and two collections of short stories. His work has received the Robert Penn Warren Prize from The Southern Review, The Amon Liner Award from The Greensboro Review, the Rainmaker Award from Zone 3, the Nancy Dew Taylor Award from the Emrys Journal, and Special Mention for a Pushcart Prize. His poems have been featured on The Writer’s Almanac, Poetry Daily, Verse Daily, and Your Daily Poem. In 2014 he was elected to the South Carolina Academy of Authors, the state’s literary hall of fame. He lives on Paris Mountain with his wife, the educator and environmental activist Barbara Allen. He is the Bennette E. Geer Professor of Literature Emeritus at Furman University.