"Beyond The Long Good-byes" by Mark Merlin Estep Winners List - New York Book Festival Winners List - San Francisco Book Festival Beyond The Long Good-byes" (ISBN 146646450X) by Mark Merlin Estep is a collection of poems that explore the modern person's quest to reconcile the spiritual, emotional and intellectual needs of human nature. The increased adoption of electronic communications, Internet-centric tools and social e-media has compressed our time to ponder the universe. Many of the past comforting answers are being challenged by life in a more and more complex and time critical global world causing individuals to ask anew "who am I?," "what is the point?" and "is this All that I am?." To cope with these powerful changes, belief systems are also in transition. The comforting assurances from once trusted social, political and religious institutions have become strained and no longer provide the faith and certainty they once enjoyed. Indeed, they sometimes pose more questions than they answer. Beyond The Long Good-byes explores the 21st century man's place in the universe and his search to fulfill these critical human needs. It is perhaps ironic that society's Internet technologies and e-media advancements have actually increased the human need to place trust and faith in something. The impersonal, abstract and physically distant capabilities of these technologies have, in many cases, caused rather than cured individual isolation. There are more ways to reach out and communicate but there are also more ways to hide and not develop interpersonal relationship skills. For example, once, people preferred to speak face to face, then by telephone, then by email and now it seems to be by texting. Who can say what will be next. These changes have often created a greater need to fulfill the emotional and spiritual hunger left behind by declining social interactions. The philosopher Aristotle observed that man is by nature a social/political animal. So, if the need to interact socially is via a communications network in lieu of personal contact, new and additional ways will have to evolve in order to sate the hunger for contact. For some, many of our existing institutions have become antiquated. For others they have failed or betrayed us. In our species, the search for relevance in the universe is as strong as our curiosity. The once unchallenged beliefs and values will now have to compete for power and resources in order to survive the cloud of this increasingly populous, global world. The poems in this collection reveal these issues through the literary power of both traditional and modern style poetry. They comprise a bold step forward toward Estep becoming and important poet who speaks from the 21st century world.