Carping Every Diem

The poems in Ed Robson’s debut collection, Carping Every Diem, glide across love, friendships, grief, and new adventures, scattering hopefulness and joy along the way. Among reminders to “carp[e] every diem” and to cherish experience rather than focus on the desolation of aging, a life-changing trip to Guatemala puts the poet’s philosophy into practice: “We’re bubbles in a lava lamp,” his paragliding guide tells him. In free verse and formal poetic structures, these poems cause the reader to celebrate the poet’s impulse to put wisdom into verse, until all of us feel like we are “just one good rain away from up and blooming.” “It takes courage to love anyone or anything when our lives are so precarious and fleeting, but Robson’s poems remind us that whatever the cost, love is worth it.” – Terri Kirby Erickson, author of Night Talks “From the cozy, conjugal bed to the tangled jungles of Guatemala, Ed’s poems convey an appetite for living that is vivid and irresistible.” – Lynn Felder, writer, collaborator, optimist “Ed Robson’s poetry is a travelogue of the human heart, guiding readers across the terrains of love, longing, language, and time….This collection reminds us that, even amid the fleeting passage of time, we are capable of courage, transformation, and flight if we choose to step boldly into the world.” – Barbara Greenbaum, author of Go Out Like Sunday and Other Stories “Even as they recount misunderstandings and falls and prejudice, these are poems of hope, ones that celebrate each age of life and believe ‘that gloom shall pass, and all things will be well, / that sundered hearts again shall beat together / in greener spring than we have ever seen.’” – Joe Mills, author of Bodies in Motion