4th & Hill Is Gone Forever is a book of poetry written in a modern but also understandable style, sometimes taking on the aspect of a story or moral tale. The poems are all derived from a time in the writer's life that revolved around a certain location that the author lived in years ago. The topics range from realistic events to fictional ones, including landlords, jobs, holidays, love, death and other things in-between. This is the third book by the author, with others to follow.
This 6th book of poetry by Robert Benefiel contains more current works written between 2008 & 2009. Many of the pieces reflect upon that current time in the author's life. The pieces themselves revolve around health, work, family, ideologies, and past. Written both at some of the greatest times of joy in his life (the birth of his daughter), as well as great sadness (being fired for questioning a company pay cut right after his daughter was born). The overall book contains these fluctuations of emotion, both positive and negative, to create an understandable connection to them. The writings themselves convey that neither emotion is avoidable, but can be used to know what part they play in influencing their own life, as well as the disdain or acceptance they might have of their environment or those around them.
The fifth book of poetry by Robert Benefiel, The Sound Of Typing, is filled with poems culled from more recent pieces all written in 2011. These poems reflect on fatherhood, work, memories, marriage, politics, and all the pains of growing older as well as its joys. Whether it's being disenfranchised with American ideologies or accepting more universal principles such as love over religion, the book continues to show the changing approaches of the author's voice as well as his constant sound.
The title for Robert Benefiel's recent collection of poetry is Fecundity. One of the meanings of that word is "the ability to produce many new ideas." This book is considered the first in a trilogy of books written in 2020, and is based on a pastiche of memories which looks to create the new from the old, by examining that which has influenced, and continues to influence and inform, the writers work. As such, the pieces included in this tome weave the past to the present, from the author's first memory, to cooking bacon for a new lover. The result is a genuine sense of both belonging and rejection, of understanding and being misunderstood, whether praising other artists works, or being mistaken by a stranger as someone they had not seen in decades, the works always look to expand on the meaning of life and the price that comes with existence.
Depression, Bleakness, And Their Beautiful Faces is a new collection of poetry by the author and artist Robert Benefiel. The pieces that appear in this volume were produced over the course of 6 months and were reflective of the dark mood that the author had entered years ago. Used as a catharsis, the work tends to represent the negative spaces in the author's head without seeking either shame or apology. The very title of the book itself is meant to show the attraction one can have towards their own decimation, and the desperation one experiences once that attraction gets out of control. Understandably the author also recognizes that through the horrific parts of ourselves such as doubt, sadness, or depression we can also find new meaning and the potential to rend new identities from our old while creating hope, elation, and satisfaction without falsity. By publishing these works the author makes no attempt to hide their results from his own life or others, being straightforward in both admitting his repulsion and attraction to such elements. Whether identifying the alienation which causes one to be their own council, feeling disconnected from others, or becoming enthralled with destructive forces, the book never seeks to entirely glorify nor belittle the effects of these darker parts of us. Instead it tends to recognize that they are prevalent and possible within all of us, as we dangerously experiment with our emotions until we either control them, or they control us.
The Sun In Rags is the 10th and latest book from author Robert Benefiel. The book is derived from two small chapbook pressings back in 2002, as well as other fully edited works from the author in previous printed journals and submissions. The poems in the book have a wide a range of theme, but often pertain to individuality versus conformity and the prices each carries. Whether it is a woman refusing to take off her mask at a gas station on Halloween, or a priest who is against torture while living under the roof of a church that is founded on its messiah being tortured to death, the author points out both the freedom and constraints of being an individual in a world full of individuals.
Call It Whatever You Want: Compendium 4 is a collection of material from the author and artist Robert Benefiel, and can be found in the previous books The Morning Roars Slowly, Verbalizing Existence, Enduring One's Own Mind, Femina Aeterna, and Give The Word. These compendiums are meant as an introduction to the author's material and style over a wide range of books. No new material has been introduced in this volume.
Hard To Imagine is the unofficial third book of three consecutive volumes of poetry written during 2020 by Robert Benefiel. The work in this go around was deemed to have a different enough voice from the other poems in the previous two books produced from that year, that it was decided to compile them into their own separate, and smaller, body of work. Ranging in tone from playful (Dot Dot Dot), to contemplative (Pre-written Suicide Note For All The People Who Didn't Have The Time, Words, Or Want, To Write One), to dark humor (They Go By the Name Parade) to Abstract (From A Dove Into A Phone), the pieces portray as diverse an aspect to the writers work as ever before, and as such tries to make art out of anything it can.
Ear Rent is a new book of poetry by the author and artist Robert Benefiel. The title is derived from suggesting the price one pays to get the attention of another, as well as having been used as a term to have one's ear cut off to pay back a debt. By titling this new collection of poetry Ear Rent he understands he is asking the reader to stop and listen to what he has to say, but that he is also paying off his debt to society by giving it back the poems it influences. Derived from no one style, the work can come from completely surreal vestiges, or from plain and ordinary circumstances. Whether looking at a rubber toy starring at him from the bottom of a bathtub, relaying a news article, or enjoying the beauty of a surreal moment of hickory trees being on fire, each poem represents just one of the many ways the author is responding to the world tapping on his shoulder and asking for the time.
Easy Battles For Lazy Armies is a collection of modern poetry by Robert Benefiel. Originally published in 1998, this collection has been updated and re-edited for the second edition.
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