Let's go back to the beginning

OK, after the adolescence bit, when I got hooked on poetry, I was fortunate enough to have my first poem published in America in a very famous magazine called Poet Lore (established in 1889).

 

The poem they choose was very personal, but also had imagery and associations that could interest anyone.

 

The year was 1966 - the year my son was born. Maybe that was the event that inspired me to write:

 

 

Father come to me, watch the black stare

of green eyes: falling winter lays dread

upon thought of spring.

 

Follow the tree, my love, away from twisting

wind into ashen bark. I see her on the hill

with violets rising through her breast and

streams running into the seed. Of serpents

that ride in the heather and tussle the

albino forest a cast in the moon.

 

 

I was 23 at the time, married with one son. Ezra Pound was on the horizon, but not yet the towering influence that he was about to become in my life.

 

More of that later ...