The Book of Stories
These poems are not stories in the truest sense. If they were stories, they would be narrative -- short stories put to verse, if you will. But instead they express a feeling or idea, so they have the characteristics of lyrical poetry.
Unlike many lyrical poems, however, they are grounded in an instant, a point in time, a specific event or series of events, either real or imagined. The voice in the poem, therefore, pays closer attention to time sequences and orientations in space than sometimes happens in lyric poetry. The poems are not stories, perhaps, but about stories.
I found myself surprised, as I wrote these, by certain dark themes which re-emerged -- subjects I have not attempted to write about in years. In the poem "Precipice," for example, the speaker approaches the brink of self-slaughter and pulls back, experiencing a sort of renewal after "passing the test" one more time. I have little to say about this except my use of this type of imagery caught me off guard.
I consider this series to be incomplete. I continue, therefore, to add to the poems' number and make alterations to them.
