a book of poetry by Karl Koweski. Karl Koweski is a displaced Region Rat now living in rural Alabama.

He writes when his pen allows it. He’s a husband to a lovely wife and father to some fantastic kids.

He collects pop culture ephemera. On most days he prefers Flash Gordon to Luke Skywalker and Neil Diamond to Elvis Presley.

"Karl Koweski’s latest book Abandoned By All Things is Karl at his best. It reads as a poetry memoir, maybe embellished or maybe just fact the way he remembers it.

It doesn’t matter it is written with a poet’s eye and it will have you turning the page, wanting more from the very first poem about coming of age with rolled up socks to burning hipsters alive to of course the Cubs losing to the true mission of all cub scouts. It is not always politically correct and that is what makes it good.

It is every boy growing up and reflecting back on what was lost and found. It is being honest about the dumb things we did growing up, about being a father.

It is the origin, the birth of the Polish Hammer. But most of all, it is without a doubt a great collection of poems that you will be happy to read more than once.

"—Scot Young, author of They Said I Wasn’t College Material and others"Unless you're Charles Bukowski (dead) or Billy Collins (alive) the world doesn't give a rat's ass about your poetry. Instagram and TikTok poets may be taking the world by storm but I don't know about it.

Karl Koweski gets it. I adore the lack of pretension in this collection.

No pretense, no bullshit, no pulpit. These are not the holier than thou words of some hipster poet speaking down to you from the heights of an overturned craft beer crate but the real words of a writer who has fucking lived and loved.

A lot of poetry collections I've read in recent years have ended up in the free library at the duck park. I'll hold onto Under Normal Conditions and Abandoned By All Things because several of the poems made me laugh until I cried and as I read I thought, "I have got to share these with my son.

""—Misti Rainwater-Lites, Author of Clown Gravy and others. .