A month ago, I decided I would publish a collection of my poems later this year, probably in the fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have never considered myself a poet, but over the years, something unique occurs, and the experience prompts me to write about it in poetic form, rather than non fiction. I have no theories or approaches to craft of writing poetry. Indeed, I loathe the word \u201ccraft\u201d in any association with the act of writing. It’s so pretentious and the province of poets who write obtuse poems for other poets, tenure, awards and grants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since I made the decision to publish the collection, I have been sifting through the poems I’ve written the last 25 years since I got the writing going when I began my service as caretaker of the Nestucca Bay National Wildlife Refuge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I have also been gripped in a frenzy of writing poetry, seeing moments from my past and present in poems, not prose. I also dug deep into the archives and rewrote or re-imagined a few seminal experiences in my life as poem, not prose. I think this process is helping me become a better writer for all genres.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The manuscript is growing. This is the only book of its kind I will ever publish. No title as of yet. I do have a cover in mind. I discarded a lot of earlier poems because they were written specifically for a certain person or occasion and have no wider appeal. Interestingly enough, every one of the poems I have written for someone, always related to love, have utterly failed in reaching the heart of that person. Perhaps that means I’m a bad poet, or perhaps it means poetry really doesn’t matter when it comes to real matters of the heart. Only in the magazines and journals. Did Shakespeare’s sonnets actually accomplish something for his personal life? Were they meant to?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Should you write a love poem to someone with a specific goal in mind?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Will I keep writing them even though they have all failed?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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