A Book of Poems

One of my “to-do” projects this winter was to put together a collection of my poems. So I did it, and here it is:

Putting out my first collection into the world feels a bit risky.  Poetry forces a writer to find just the right word, so there’s a lot of soul searching involved when figuring out precisely what I think or feel about a person or place or event. (Am I perplexed or confounded? Is indigo or aqua a better word than blue? ) By the time one of my poems has been written, revised, and rearranged, well, there’s my soul as a splat on the page.

The poems in this collection have distilled many of my experiences; I write about the place where I live and some of the places I have been. There are poems about my marriage, about teaching, and about quarantine. I write about the injustices that move me and make me sad. And though my Christian faith is important to me, I will disappoint anyone looking for me to be religious-y.   

I titled it Drink In Sweet Rain. I live by water, swim in water, thirst for water, and like everyone else, need water to live. Rain comes to us from above and I’m grateful for it: pouring, misting, pelting, drenching, sprinkling, blizzarding, drizzling.  When we don’t have rain, we long for it. Without it, we become parched, thirsty, empty, dry.

But there are other things I long for as well. Though I live in a beautiful place, it is not a fair place. This year has revealed more than ever who has and who does not.  I have lived long enough to have known a lot of good people, but I also know racists, and bullies, and worse.  So just like we need rain to live, we need righteousness, justice, kindness, truth. Without them, we become equally as parched and as dry as those who live without water.  I hope my book reminds readers that it is good to thirst for all that is sweet and good.

No pressure, please.  But if you want to order a copy,  ($10)  click this link, and I’ll get one sent to you right away.

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