Tom Allbaugh’s poems ask questions. What is thankfulness? What is devotion? They move with grace—smooth as fish in an aquarium light through various scenes— a visit to the dentist, plane travel, writing letters, writing novels, Paul Bonfiglio’s South Side Sweets, a son stopped mid-flight.Diane Glancy, author of The Reason for Crows In The View from January, Thomas Allbaugh’s poems traverse icy Michigan and mild California, the airport and the hospital, meditating on our need for community and belonging even as environments grow strange. I admire Allbaugh’s craft, the way his sentences unfold down lines of varying lengths, the way he blends in alliteration, assonance, and off-rhyme to create an intricate and subtle sound play. These poems invite a rereading and deserve to be read aloud. There is a tenderness in them that makes them approachable, a sharpness in imagery that keeps them from being overly elusive. There is pain here. And there is joy. Like the collection’s closing image of robins sounding out both comfort and reassurance, these poems cry out to us, pleading to us, “See, we are not alone.”Derek Updegraff, author of Paintings That Look Like ThingsThe View from January channels “the two-faced / deity lurking there behind / all our commerce” with poems that examine the past while envisioning futures both potential and impossible. These poems work with the precise clarity that comes along with deep grief. Allbaugh weaves loss and beauty together with threads of playfulness and connection, reminding readers again and again, “See, we are not alone.”Katie Manning, author of Tasty Other and editor-in-chief at Whale Road Review
