Bob Mello’s poetry warrants close inspection because it contains what Faulkner, in his Nobel speech, called the ‘eternal verities.' "The young writer of today," Faulkner said, "must leave…no room in his workshop for anything but the old verities and truths of the heart, the old universal truths lacking which any story is ephemeral and doomed – love and honor and pity and pride and compassion and sacrifice."

In Bob Mello’s poetry one finds these eternal verities. They can appear in an instant, as in some of his single-stanza poems, or develop over several pages, as in his longer poems. A most telling feature of his poetry is an infectious mood and style. Bob Mello’s poetry is intoxicating and addictive. I often reach for one of my folders of his poetry, planning to read a few poems, and end up reading them all.

In this collection you will find a brief sample of the unique elixir that is the poetry of Bob Mello.

from the Foreword