Illuminating the Umbra

A collection of 35 poems, mostly terzanelles, exploring how family, work environments, and seeking love have helped shape who I am today: an educator in mind, a small town grocer in soul, and a comic book hero at heart. I can get mired down with the dark of the world, or I can try to do something about it.

The terzanelle is French/Italian adaptation of the terza rima to the villanelle form. The poems are 19 lines long and ten syllables each. The poems are composed of five triplets and a concluding quatrain. I enjoy the puzzle-like nature of this form and the subtlety of the repeating lines, the variations in meaning. I've tried a few variations as well, 16 lines, 22 lines, and non-rhyming.