Comments
19
Forum Posts
2
Group Posts 0
Poet Introduction
My poetry derives from a life lived fully. Often, it portrays a vision of what might be or might have been. It is meant to be engaging if not enticing, entertaining if not gratifying, challenging and sometimes absurd. If you like it, I have succeeded.
Favorite Poets/Writers
Dylan Thomas, William Carlos Williams, Wallace Stevens, Sylvia Plath, Allen GinsbergAbout Me
Read Full
M.A. Lit -- N.Y.U. Writing is my avocation. Running a small nonprofit pays the bills. I do poems, songs and suspense short stories. I also play guitar, mandolin and electric bass, and sing. I have done a lot of acting in college and community theater.
Another area of interest is philosophy and metaphysics. I was raised Catholic, but was an agnostic for 30 years until a series of circumstances confirmed--for me--that there is a God. I remain however somewhat a-religious, and I doubt that I will ever find a religion that will suit my existentialistic/humanistic outlook. Never a "follower," I have nonetheless read several theological and philosophical works, key authors of this kind being theologians Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jacques Maritain and Paul Tillich and philosophers Kant, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Neitzsche and Sartre. If you are also a doubter and deep thinker, you will find me receptive.
While writing is an avocation, I take it very seriously. With every work, I labor to find the right words, in the right configurations, to maximize the impression upon the reader. And one aspect of that impression—while the work may be personal and sometimes autobiographical—is ENTERTAINMENT. If the reader is not drawn into a work, because of its compelling nature and entertainment value, I have failed.
Humor can be important, even in a work with sinister overtones. And it must be “literary”…which to me means that the work should be comprised of some or all the elements of poetry…metaphor, alliteration, symbolism, assonance, subtext, irony, meter and sometimes rhyme. If a word I use seems unfamiliar, I encourage the reader to do what I have done since I began reading in grade school: look it up, learn it and use it in your own works.[left][/left]
Another area of interest is philosophy and metaphysics. I was raised Catholic, but was an agnostic for 30 years until a series of circumstances confirmed--for me--that there is a God. I remain however somewhat a-religious, and I doubt that I will ever find a religion that will suit my existentialistic/humanistic outlook. Never a "follower," I have nonetheless read several theological and philosophical works, key authors of this kind being theologians Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Jacques Maritain and Paul Tillich and philosophers Kant, Heidegger, Kierkegaard, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Neitzsche and Sartre. If you are also a doubter and deep thinker, you will find me receptive.
While writing is an avocation, I take it very seriously. With every work, I labor to find the right words, in the right configurations, to maximize the impression upon the reader. And one aspect of that impression—while the work may be personal and sometimes autobiographical—is ENTERTAINMENT. If the reader is not drawn into a work, because of its compelling nature and entertainment value, I have failed.
Humor can be important, even in a work with sinister overtones. And it must be “literary”…which to me means that the work should be comprised of some or all the elements of poetry…metaphor, alliteration, symbolism, assonance, subtext, irony, meter and sometimes rhyme. If a word I use seems unfamiliar, I encourage the reader to do what I have done since I began reading in grade school: look it up, learn it and use it in your own works.[left][/left]
PrurientVersifier (Brian Barney)
Lost Thinker