Rating: 
Summary: Poetry that works, that explores things of importance
Review: While this poetry is unlikely to appear in anthologies a century from now, Dennis has captured well the faith, doubts and concern for meaning in our age. A few poems require academic knowledge of poets and religious beliefs of other eras, but on the whole these poems are acceptable to the general reading public.His poetry is written in comparatively long lines with a conversational rhythm. Unlike some writing in such a style, however, his work is not prose broken into lines but rather carefully crafted poetry. The strength of the poetry is often in the cohesiveness built from disparate parts. Dennis is able to connect ancient mythology, Japanese poets, Biblical references, Moby Dick etc. to our contemporary lives. Examples, "Sun Rise" begins with the Aztec human sacrifices only to move to the Jewish diasporia's revolution from temple sacrifice to a religion of the books. Or "Eternal Poetry" which explores prison reform while insisting it is not a topic appropriate to poetry. "The Serpent to Adam" is a surprising evaluation of what was (or was not) lost in the fall of Adam. "Prophet" uses the story of Jonah to explore the work of a prophet in our own time, in soup kitchen.
| 
