Current Project - Shadows on the Carpet

I am looking for funding to publish my new book of poetry titled, "Shadows on the Carpet".  It will be a compilation of my darker poems - dark shadows from my past expressed in varying poetic shades of gray where the past meets the future as memories in the present.

Because I have been told that the book needs to end on an 'up' note, it will be a progression from the darkness to the light with roughly 100 poems divided into 9 sections.

 

Less than 1% of my poems come out of the blue of left field. More than 99% of my poems are very personal to me even those that are inspired by outside influences such as a visual (painting, photo, nature, etc.), a word overheard, a scent, a taste or the feel of an object or event.  They stem from a seed deep inside me based on my continually changing perspective of some real experience in my life.  That stem then grows and morphs into a completed poem, colored by time, mellowing or sharpening into shapes that often surprise me. 

Many of my poems are abstract or written in the third person - mainly those that are rooted in extreme pain and darkness.  I need to step back and out of that pain and darkness to articulate it.  This makes it easier to then weave other elements into the poem (relationship/social/political under/over tones) sometimes intentionally but many times the message just shows up in the completed poem.  I suspect that the poems and songs of the exiled Czech poet and singer Karel Kryl had a tremendous influence on my writing in that respect.  Some of my family and friends now actively look for the layers in my poems as they read and re-read them.