Thoughts…
What, No Smiley Face?
In my junior year of college, I wore my favorite pair of hip-hugger bell bottoms—soft denim, salmon in color—with an orange sad face patch on the right back pocket. The patch was my protest not against the Vietnam War that raged at that time, but against optimism,...
A Dream for the Decades
My dream of publishing a book of poetry might have begun when I was a teenager, writing overly-religious poems until graduating from high school, but it began to take deeper roots in the late 70s and early 80s when I began to write poems I considered...
Creative Writing Classes
While I wait for the paperback version of my debut collection of poems to be released, I have been having some fun promoting my poetry and poetry in general. Last spring I was invited to speak to some students at the Montessori School in Front Royal. Earlier this...
What a Poem and an Artichoke Have in Common
Interpreting poetry is analogous to exploring the layers of an artichoke blossom. My least favorite way to analyze a poem is to consider the elements of rhyme, meter, form, and sound devices (alliteration, consonance, assonance, onomatopoeia), so let’s categorize...
“all because i loved you” by Olu Oguibe
In creating a new poetry seminar recently, I chose the topic of epiphanies and, after exploring Google, I had a visceral reaction to an unfamiliar poem that emerged. That poem is “all because I loved you” by Olu Oguibe. I read the poem, felt its powerful and sorrowful...
Dreams as Inspiration
I have read the poems in my collection numerous times while editing, revising, and reviewing each iteration of the manuscript and the digital and paperback proofs. I am also in the process of compiling about 40 poems for a possible sequel to A...
