The joy of reading Poems By The Skunk River Valley Boys by Barry and Steve Benson is to watch grown men pay such careful attention to the world. The first "rule" in Barrys poem "Rules for Frustrated Poets" is to "Heed the image" - and thats exactly what these poems do. Here youll find people (like Aunt Clara) places (mostly Iowa), rock and roll songs, the aurora borealis, plants and animals ( wolves, deer, pheasants, muskrats, pigs, hippos, bees). In the end these are poems about remembering, but what they really teach us is how to see.

- Keith Ratzlaff, Author of Man...