Thursday, June 18, 2015

Book Launch: Even in Winter

Book Launch: Even in Winter

I have just published my latest collection of poems.  It is called Even in Winter.  In this collection I take a new turn in how I have put the poems together.  Previous collections have been form specific: either the entire book was dedicated to a single form (such as Microcosmos which is dedicated to renga, or White Roses dedicated to haiku), or each section of the book is form specific.  An example is Lanterne Light which contains three collections of poems and all three collections are form specific; the lanterne, the tetractys, and the cinquain.

In Even in Winter I have mixed the forms, so the collection is not form specific.  All the poems are formal, but the forms are interspersed and not grouped into form specific collections.

Five forms are used: Etheree, Fibonacci, Lucas, the Even Sequence, and 100 Friends.  These forms are explained as part of the back matter in a section called ‘Afterthoughts’.  I felt that the different forms worked well with each other because all five of the forms share a similar overall shape.  All of the forms start with very short lines and then expand into longer lines.  What differs among the forms is the pace of the expansion.  Here is a quick look at the syllable counts for the five forms used in the collection:

Etheree:               1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
Fibonacci:            1-1-2-3-5-8-13-21, etc.
Lucas:                  2-1-3-4-7-11-18-29, etc.
Even Sequence:   2-2-4-6-10-16, etc.
100 Friends:        2-4-2-4-6-4-6-8-6-8-10-8-10-12-10

I think of this collection as a kind of bouquet of forms.  Hopefully they are attractively arranged.  The collection covers a number of themes; nature and seasonality are central.  Spirituality and my commitments as a Quaker are woven into the collection, hopefully in a not too obtrusive way.  I think I would say that the overriding theme is the human relationship to eternity in an ephemeral world.

Even in Winter
ISBN: 9781514224649
118 pages
$12.00


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