An Affront to Gravity

As far as poetry is concerned, I am neither sure-footed nor clear. Metaphorically speaking, I am out on a leafless limb with just spider webs and moss, listening to the silken slip of water over stone. And the fact that no one understands me, doesn't make me an artist. My poems will probably not send a flurry of palpitations through the Gallery of Important Things Said, but then, my expectations have always been unreasonably high. Sometimes, when a poem fails, I carry around my ineptitude like a bowling ball, for the rest of the day envisioning the blank page just lying there, a fallen tree from the forest, soundlessly waiting.

I would much prefer my poems give the reader a sudden inhalation of joy-a reflexive gasp of awe and wonder-like seeing a Ferris wheel for the first time. If this volume has that effect on even a small portion of the reading populace, I will be ecstatic.

About the Author

There are few activities that give me more pleasure than nudging

words across the blankly disquieting page, and pushing clay

around, into, and through itself. I have been fortunate to work in

two disciplines, writing and ceramics, and I have discovered the

end result seldom exactly matches the goal in either. It is the work

that matters-the engagement of my imagination, the intuitive

use of my mind and hands. In the end, the artist discovers art has

a mind of its own, and it is these repeated realizations that enrich

my life. As much as any other work that I do, these small transformative

journeys carry me (for the most part) forward.

My mother owned a bookstore from 1962 to 1985 in Petaluma,

California. It was called Alta's Old Book Shop, and its value

lay not in glossy modernity, but in its being a sort of dusty delivery

room for the birth of ideas. It was for me, a refuge from hasty

judgment, a source for answers and insights which enlarged my

personal life and gave it meaning, and also generated an impulse

to write.

I am currently teaching a poetry writing class at the Vintage

House Senior Center in Sonoma as part of the Santa Rosa Junior

College Older Adults Program. There is magic in this group of

people; they are blossoming as poets and contributing immeasurably

to my own ability to write poetry. I am most thankful for

their presence in my life.