I have just published a chapbook of a selection of recent poems entitled, “Tuesday Mornings: poems of wonder, lament, and whimsy.” You may purchase a copy at the Lulu Bookstore.

 

 

Here is an excerpt from the preface …

I have chosen to group the poems under three headings: wonder, lament and whimsy. All my writing begins in wonder: wonder at this extraordinarily beautiful and inscrutable world of God’s making and the privilege of living within it, observing and appreciating and engaging; wonder at the human capacity for making beauty with color and shape and texture, with melody and harmony and counterpoint, with movement, and with words; wonder at the beauty of the human spirit at its best when we are able to reflect something of the wisdom and grace and compassion of the creator whose image we bear.

This world is beautiful, indeed, but troubled and besieged by brutality, compelling the poems of lament. Lament is an ancient and powerful form of prayer, a way of giving voice to distress, of refusing to ignore or excuse injustice. Lament is not despair, but its opposite, a declaration that evil should and can be overcome, and a hope-filled expectation that its own cries will be heard, by people and by God.

Whimsy is the corollary to wonder, finding exuberant delight in the beauty and power of language itself, playing with words to induce a knowing smile or a joyful laugh, uncovering serious meaning by not taking itself too seriously.

I do hope that you will enjoy reading these poems or speaking them aloud, which is how all poetry should be heard, and that the poems may inspire your own expressions of wonder and lament and whimsy.