Then and Now

Author: Jean Tobin Publisher: Audio Arcadia (2021) In this engaging new collection of poems, written over several decades, Jean Tobin includes memories, hopes for the future, and precise observations of daily life, then and now. Time is a constant theme, particularly in its passing, in its transience. Always there is the question of what lasts. But this is an affirmative book, filled with the love of nature, of art and literature, of individual people and people in groups. The book gives glimpses of urban life, in Milwaukee and Boston, Cambridge and New York—of Marlborough Street and Harvard Square, Washington Square and Central Park—and of the “Up North” of Wisconsin, with its wolves and loons. But mainly, what emerges is the landscape of Black River, an actual place not found on any map, with its white pines and birches, its maples and beeches, frequented by deer and grey fox, red squirrels and grey ones, and a plethora of birds: cardinals and blue jays, chickadees and nuthatches, th