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.
