How I fumble about eulogizing a career that never even started . " FISHING IN THE MAELSTROM is the first book of poetry by David A. Lowenthal. It was born from a number of private "Poetic Journals" written over a 20-year span. Though never intended to be published, the book lies here before you. Lowenthal dives into the passion, love, fear, joy, pain, loss, death and dreams of the young poet struggling to find his voice. His poems move from magical to base realism, from rhyming to free verse and structured to non-form without any gate. His poet voice is both brash and eloquent, sometimes in the same stanza. "You apologize for biting, and I beg you not to stop." "And too, that our dusty dreams will play tag in our minds as the light is not bright enough for us to guide them." You feel an echo of Neruda, cummings, Sexton, Ferlinghetti and Sandburg in his poems. Sometimes they simply lack definition. Perhaps he is a poet of a new age, starkly personal and smashing the molds before him.