Human Story will not Consume the Cosmos by Alexander Hollenberg

Discovering a so-far little known voice in contemporary verse that comes preloaded with an abundance of talent and original vision is something to be celebrated, and with Alexander Hollenberg’s Human Story will not Consume the Cosmos, I am more than ready to step up to that plate and broadcast my satisfaction. To plunge into his many leveled world is to be embraced, sometimes with ‘emotion recollected in tranquility’ and sometimes with visions temptingly obscure and slanted with the surreal.

Herein, one can couch slumber, cozy under a blanket of poesy or one can bolt upright and be the adventurous reader, bravely entering a maze of apparent mystery, allowing oneself to get lost in the veils of metaphor and sudden shifts in perspective, while ever able return to more reassuring sentimental favourites. Of the latter we have:

U-PICK

From the fridge my local strawberries taste
like nutrition capsules from some sci-fi
tv special.  I know I know
I should have left them to warm on the counter
but room temperature these days is just sticky
which is not a temperature
and everything moves much to quickly to syrup.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m not mourning.
This is not nostalgia for the days of u-pick
strawberries with my mother,
For ants in my tube socks.
I’m just here wishing this loss of control
Was something that was my fault.

Of the former let me repair to…

Wax Sky, With Fish

In the whirligig of autumn air, a parliament erupts.  All matter of
Fish slip from the stitches between clouds. Tailfins helicopter, 
smooth scales catching light and current, soft shimmering 
silver berries a reminder of all the possibilities of stardust.
We do not wonder why they are there because it is the future
and we are truant, the technology of imagination stolen back
from us (what’s the word for absence of fire?), secreted
in the wings of these beautiful frankenfish. They glisten in 
the jetstream and debate important matters: the physics of
nonhuman poetry and policies for the preservation of centuries.
They vote that the sky, not the wings, will be wax, that is, if it
all melts, we melt together. You must be wondering how I’m 
telling this story. Omniscience is not all it’s cracked up to be, but
It’s the closest thing to an empty ocean against an empty sky.

Other highlights would include “Sestina For The Modernist”, a well fabricated glosa, “Gone Fishing”, employing a quatrain of Elizabeth Bishop’s, a tribute to Gordon Lightfoot, “We Create Wavelengths First,” reflections on William James, “Exile Happens as Soon As You Speak” which concludes, rather giving away the poet’s game,

…Almost all rhyme is imperfect
And so, and must always trail, as if to say,
you’re not quite there yet and maybe the moon
is a hawk and maybe it’s the garden
and maybe exile happens as soon as you speak
and maybe making the world paratactic
at least allow for the possibility
that human story will not consume the cosmos.

In our world of chattering classes where humanly created chaos is blamed for all imbalance, whether ecological, societal or political, while hurricanes, volcanoes and earthquakes, not to mention bacteria and viruses, are regularly given a free pass I find this perspective refreshing. Our pride and its accompanying shame has a habit of insisting on our original sinner’s guilt while ignoring all other possible causes and outcomes. We lambaste those who would cave to the specter of God’s will while parading our own impertinence and presumption. As we busy ourselves lowering our carbon footprint let’s also take a shot at reducing our arrogant grandiosity and maybe concentrate on giving dominion over just ourselves.

Just a thought.

Meanwhile Alexander Hollenberg has gifted us with an accomplished debut which, as it entertains, mystifies and inspires, makes a promise I am confident it can keep.

Alexander Hollenberg is from Hamilton, Ontario. He is a Pushcart-nominated poet and professor of storytelling who loves to write about crows and fish. His debut collection, Human Story will not Consume the Cosmos, was published by Gaspereau Press in June 2025. Some of his new work can be found in Arc, The New Quarterly, Prairie Fire, and Grain. Recently, he won Contemporary Verse 2’s Two-Day Poem Contest.

Publisher: Gaspereau Press (June 23rd, 2025)
Paperback: 8″x 5″
ISBN: 9781554472789

gordon phinn

gordon phinn has been writing and publishing since 1975. Fiction, non-fiction, memoir. poetry, & criticism. Recent chapbooks include The Poet Stuart, Music Amuses & Winter, Spring and the Seduction of Eternity. Criticism includes Bowering & McFadden, It's All About Me and the upcoming Joy In All Genres.