Today I published my second micro collection of poetry, Shelter, to Kindle.
Shelter's theme = HOME. Places we live, places in which we sleep, and the people who have gone before us there. My parents built the house I grew up in, and it's the only previously uninhabited place I've ever slept. I've lived in countless dorms, apartments and one sorority house. I lived in an apartment above a dead man for a week in 2001. (That's an essay I continue to work on in the hopes I can find a print publisher, for it's a profound story.) I lived in a 90-year-old house in Kansas City that had six previous owners in that time. Now I live in a 32-year-old house that stood empty for eight months while under foreclosure, a house teenagers broke into to party, a house in which we initially found a dead bird and parts of a bat. If only these walls could talk.
"Baptism of a Staircase" was written when I was in graduate school, and it's about the night Beloved and I sealed the beautiful Mission staircase in This Old House.
"In Residence" was also written in grad school and was influenced heavily by Maxine Kumin's "Morning Swim," which is one of my favorite poems.
"Autumn Light" is dedicated to the changing of light from golden to white in autumn. It was a sincere departure from my normal style at the behest of my poetry professor. (I suspect she didn't like my usual style, but I could be wrong.)
"November Reflections" was written before the little angel was born but shortly after we bought This Old House, in the first year I was married.
"The Places You've Been" was first written in college in one form, then rewritten around ten times to arrive at its final form.
Please check it out if you have Kindle or a Kindle app. It's $1, but Kindle will mark it down to around $.80 at least initially.
See the Books & Kindle link above for more of my work on Kindle.
