Shadow and Memory Now Available!

I’m pleased to say that my third book, Shadow and Memory, is now available on Amazon in paperback and Kindle formats. This book represents an interesting juncture for me. As I explain in the book’s introduction, I’ve been in a season of leaving what is comfortable for me as writer: trying new poetic forms and reaching for language and imagery beyond what comes easily for me. I’m not always sure what I think of poems when I finish but I think I’m growing. That’s the main thing, I suppose.

I hope you’ll check out this new book. Like my other books, Shadow and Memory contains free verse and formal poems (i.e. sonnets, haiku, etc). Below is the title poem. It is my third villanelle, a tightly structured form of 19 lines. I find difficult forms really engaging; the limits of the form are like a box, and to fit in it I have to think outside of it….if that makes any sense 😉

Shadow and Memory

We live with shadows, vacancies
of definition, light, and hue,
where each thing casts its memory.

The slack and spreading hand of tree 
shade lies in the grass, still and mute.
We live with shadows, vacancies.

Rorschach-birds ripple over streets,
dominoed building shade lands askew,
and each thing casts its memory.

On the green sward of cemeteries,
graves cast their shapes like lots just strewn.
We live with shadows, vacancies.

As the late sun bleeds out and reels
on the horizon, it looks back to 
where each thing casts its memory.

Our silhouettes lie at our feet
and share our steps, however few. 
We live with shadows, vacancies,
where each thing casts its memory.