Nine Years Since Publishing "Bare Ruined Choirs"

It's been nine years since I published my poetry book Bare Ruined Choirs, and I'm still proud of those poems.

Writing poetry is certainly different than prose--more than usual meaning and manner, to paraphrase the Romantics. Writing those poems took time, often years. I was in no hurry to "finish" a poem; the process of revising and refining itself was fulfilling. The poems in the book suggest the life cycle of a relationship, from first meeting to last good-bye.

Autobiographical? Of course . . . but not exactly. Beginning with personal experience or emotion, the process of refinement was a movement from personal and specific to universal. I think this is true of all art, discovering the ocean in a drop of water.

So in celebration of how those poems resonate with the universal ocean of life, of which my poems and I are but a drop, I post today these words and cover photo of my book.

Here is a link to two poems from the book, audio recordings by me of "Sleeping Magnolia" and "I Forgive Your Death."