Coming Forward

I have been writing poetry for most of my life and like Emily Dickinson, I have never published my poems which were written or typed either on full pages or on scraps that scattered themselves about in disarray. It is an impulse that comes when I have a pen in hand and a blank paper. I have never submitted but I have recited in clubs, though briefly. I also had the fortune to have participated in one of Carl Watson's poetry classes, in which he praised us for being his best participants he had yet encountered. Nothing more came of that.

So it was late in life that I finally gathered together my poems and went over them, rewrote some, started new ones and began arranging them. My first poem written in high school had been destroyed but I had memorized the first two stanzas and was able to reconstruct the last. Likewise one of my poems that I has recited in the clubs and that was well received was also lost, unfortunately irretrievable. Fortunately, these were my only real losses for being so horribly untidy.

Among my influences, my first was Poe, later there were Whitman, Frost, and ee cummings. My passion for jazz likewise played some influence. In the process of reviewing my poetry, I saw the changing, evolving patterns in my writing as a reflection of my own changing evolving life and my inner feelings, and in that process I analyzed that past life. I had always considered myself as being shy and reserved when I was young but in my analyzing process, I came to realize that I was actually quite repressed and it was only gradually that I grew out of that shell, the poetry I wrote along the way being part of the help for myself. My poetry changed over time, due to my changing inner mind and spirit and to my expanding experience. These poems then are a record of my being as much as anything

I am a Sagittarius and true to that sign I love variety. Within these pages you will find that variety and I hope that among them you will find some enjoyment. These are my poems. This is my life and mind. Enjoy.