poetry
I was interested in reading poetry fairly early in life. If I remember correctly, it was in sixth or seventh grade that I first began with Shakespeare and a few other classics. But that wasn’t when I really understood poetry… the day that poetry actually penetrated my soul happened in Mrs. Kilbourn’s study hall on an otherwise uneventful high school day. For reasons I no longer remember, I was reading Sidney Lanier that day, and though I cannot remember the specific poem, I remember Lanier’s description of light filtering through the leaves of a tree, and I had an epiphany. I saw it. I heard the reality of it. I understood. And I thank you, Sidney.
I experimented with poetry during high school, and then began writing very seriously during college and shortly thereafter. At that time at Kansas University, I was still very much influenced by the Beat Poets… Ginsberg, Corso, di Prima, etc. Plus, Gary Snyder, Adrienne Rich, Diane Wakoski, and so many more. My efforts during college culminated with my winning the Carruth Poetry Competition at the University of Kansas in 1977.
After college ended, I began pursuing the American dream, which involved marriage, children, a suburban home, serious debt and the need to make money around the clock to pay for it. Out of necessity and personal exhaustion, my work with verse wound slowly down until it was simply gone. But now, years later, I have adopted an approach toward life that emphasizes doing meaningful work as opposed to doing lucrative work, which means giving as much time to my own vision as I do to the visions of others. I also have rescued a portion of my early work, which I am assembling into a collection. So I am writing poetry once again and am thrilled to be doing so.
My early work I plan to self-publish in a collection called: Repairing Shattered Glass. I picked this name to reflect the state of my life during my poesy years and the process I went through as I traveled from the depths of depression to the point where I could accept my life as it was and be happy again. Honestly, I don’t think that process was truly completed until I came back to life as a writer here in Portland.
Update: Repairing Shattered Glass is now available on Lulu.com and Amazon.com.