A dear friend, poet and mentor recently said to me that I write poems like poems have never been written before. Of course, I took my friend’s comment as a compliment and as a challenge; it is making me think deeper about my style, technique and interests.
I rarely sit to write a poem about something, i.e. with a particular theme in mind. Rather, I often have an image informed by time spent with Nature, science, my Zen Buddhist practice, and/or a near-fatal neurological trauma I experienced eleven years ago. Then, following the lead of the great poet William Stafford, I let details set down in language become the beginning of a golden thread leading me further downstream. I allow the words, lines and stanzas to come in their own way, either slow or fast, and let the poem take the shape it wants to take. I revise, revise, revise. Occasionally the result pleases me. If not, then, like Stafford “I just lower my standards” and hope that, perhaps, one day the better poem will arise. Sometimes it has.
I am fortunate that I have had a life enriched by Nature, science, and loving people and animals. A very-early retired chemist, my poems are forthcoming or have been published in many literary journals including Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review, Cider Press Review, Nimrod, Sulphur River Literary Review, the Kerf, the Santa Fe Literary Review, and The New Mexico Poetry Review. I conduct workshops on the intersections of poetry, science, mathematics and Nature, and live in Santa Fe, NM.
Thank you for stopping at my website. I hope you enjoy the selection of my poems and blog musings. Periodically, the selection of poems will change and/or be updated. I look forward to your comments.
