Sobremesa: A Poetic Conversation in Five Acts

by Jeffrey Buller

Overview

In Sobremesa, Jeffrey L. Buller lingers in the unhurried space after the obvious ending—the quiet hour when conversation outlasts the meal. These poems move between wry observation and tender confession: a grocery cart with its own agenda, a houseplant's silent judgment, the ache of a voice overheard in a supermarket aisle. Buller's gift is noticing: the way a lamp keeps vigil for tomorrow's forgiveness, how a receipt can itemize modest hopes, why some jokes echo at three a.m. With humor that never denies heart, and intimacy that never slips into sentimentality, Sobremesa invites readers to sit a little longer—past the small talk and the tidy moral—until what matters has room to arrive.

By turns reflective, playful, and disarmingly direct, these are poems that believe in the consolations of everyday life: coffee gone cold, books that wait without complaint, and the stubborn mercy of ordinary afternoons. Pull up a chair. Stay for one more story. The conversation's not over yet.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798319678560
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	08/30/2025
Pages:	140
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.33(d)

About the Author

Jeffrey L. Buller, a former academic dean and university administrator, is the author of more books than anyone should be allowed to publish, including volumes of poetry, mystery novels, academic satires, and works on leadership in higher education. Largely retired, he now writes full-time, splitting his days between serious scholarship and not-at-all-serious reflections on group texts, disobedient shopping carts, and the warmth left behind in an empty chair.

Sobremesa is his second poetry collection, although he remains mildly surprised that he let the first one be published at all. He lives in North Carolina with his wife Sandra, where he stays home on Fridays and continues to overthink everything.