Household Hints for the End of Time

Bert Almon is a professor of English at the University of Alberta. He is
the author of Calling Texas, Earth Prime, and Mind the Gap.

Ken Howe’s creative zeal takes some humorous postmodern forms. His
poems range widely through science, art, music, and B movies. He likes
whimsical footnotes packed with lore that may or may not be factual, but
his annotations are always entertaining. He can be compassionate as well
as humorous, as in his powerful portrait of a woman suffering from
Alzheimer’s (“A Maid in Hell”). One of his most amusing poems
deals with a Catholic missionary’s tribulations with dysentery in
Central America. A high point of the volume is “Elegy for My Friend
Carol.”

The final section of the book comprises a set of poems about music.
Howe is a professional French horn player. His style is as convoluted at
times as the notorious instrument itself. A famous horn player once said
that you never know if the first note will be cracked or not. Howe’s
antics are occasionally excessive, but he generally gets most of the
notes right.