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Bernard Jankowski captures the soul of a coal mining town in his new book "The Shamokin Monologues." The small Pennsylvania town, from which the small volume of poems borrows its name, is where the Poolesville resident spent his childhood summers; many of his family members still live there.

Jankowski writes almost all his poems in first person, appropriate for a book of "monologues," creating an immediate sense of intimacy. A variety of narrators makes the book a believable collective conscience of the town. They are male and female, old and young, undergoing different experiences. In "I wait for a bus I can't take," he writes from the point of view of a young girl trying to escape her abusive household. A priest struggling to stay celibate is the speaker of "Sometimes, Lord, I wonder." In "There he goes again, that Jack," the poet steps into the shoes of a waitress anxiously awaiting the arrival of a patron she loves.

The circumstances Jankowski depicts are typical of American life, which furthers the book's ability to appeal to almost anyone. In "I know it's coming," an elderly man seeks the company of youth in an effort to feel young. He goes with his grandchildren to an amusement park and savors the fact that he has not been put in a nursing home.

"My only living brother and one of my sisters / have already disappeared / to the sad rooms, / shared with strangers, / with even stranger maladies. / I see the dimming of their eyes. / I can't tolerate a snorer." for bosses," a man lays out his desire for a woman to support him. He doesn't want to be like his father, a broken spirit who slaved in the coal mines.

"My Pop never missed a day, / 35 years gone from dawn to dusk. / Where'd it get 'em? / The black lung and the black hole."

Although Jankowski does not write in meter or in rhyme, his careful word choice and line breaks portray the characters with snapshot accuracy, as in "You think this town looks mean by day."

"Tonight, with a moon shot / over the mounds of culm, / this town rides its coal-hard soul / deep into the night."

The line captures the sadness and cruelty of life in Shamokin.

This poem, where Jankowski really hits his stride, is the only one that departs from first person. Instead he uses the rare second person to tell the reader what your life would be like as you embark on a bar-hopping adventure to spend an average evening in Shamokin. The collage of characters paints a haunting portrait of life in small-town America.

"The guy on the jukebox / lost his wife and / another has no wife, / and the guy sitting next to you / offers you his wife."

Jankowski's frequently used technique of making the first line of the poem the title is effective here. "You think this town looks mean by day" immediately bleeds into the first stanza, "with its coal-sooted storefronts, / men cut hard in their 50s hats, / women who chip away / at each other over a Woolworth's lunch?"

While Calvin Edward Ramsburg's impressionistic sketches reflect the gray mood of the poems, the print quality does not do them justice. The drawings appear pixilated and blurry, dampening an otherwise effective artistic collaboration.

Although this might not be the best book to pick up when you're already suffering from the winter blues, it's hard not to admire how much Jankowski captures in a book of only 20 poems.

"The Shamokin Monologues" can be purchased by sending a check for $10, plus $7.95 shipping and handling, to Banty Corp., 35 Circle View Drive, Elysburg, PA 17872. Credit card orders can be faxed to 301-916-3330.