Good Greetings!
In the Midst of Good and Evil is the title of the book I have been working on since I was five and I first began writing poetry. I'm currently 38. I was born and raised and am currently residing in South Dakota, America, Western Hemisphere, Earth, Solar System, Milky Way, Universe. It's essentially, as they say, my life's work insofar as poetry goes. I have over twenty-four thousand poems amassed/written thus far. The book can easily be broken up in to hundreds of more manageably-sized chapbooks, however, of course. I have written poetry almost every day of my life for over thirty-three years now and I don't ever plan to quit, not even for Death, quite candidly. Some days I write hundreds of poems. Thanks to many and many a poet, I got hooked on poetry as a small boy and ever since it's continued to enthrall, interest, elate, tickle, coerce, calm, call upon and guide me.
I LOVE writing poetry and would write it happily even were each poem I scribe to disappear from both sight and memory instantly upon completion. I write poetry as children dance, and for the same reasons. As for genre, seriously, you name it...it's likely in the book. I have written on literally tens of thousands of subjects: love, life, (MANY branches/specifics of) science, nature, history, metaphysical, paranormal, theological, political, spiritual; have told thousands of stories, posited thousands of philosophical questions/theories and have done so utilizing thousands of poetic forms, from whatever free form the congregating poems happened to take to sonnets, epic heroic couplet ballads, haikus, villanelles, limericks and so on and so on and so on...
In the Midst of Good and Evil will make you, indeed it will force you to, think! It is exceptionally philosophical, which is to say there is both scope and depth philosophically speaking. Not only do I discuss voluminous concepts, but I delve into them very deeply. One could say I write a great deal of, though by no means exclusively, as I tend to goof around with poetry a lot as well, "philoetry"; philosophy/poetry or philosophical poetry. If you were to read my entire compendium, the whole book, or even a tenth of the book, as far as that goes, before you stopped reading from it, you would undoubtedly have smiled many times, would have dared to challenge yourself in many ways, and would have found yourself believing in your capacity to accomplish more in your lifetime than you ever had before.
In the Midst of Good and Evil is all but, and maybe even guaranteed, to make you, and everyone who reads it cry, laugh, agree, disagree, go on entertaining imaginary adventures, feel like a kid again, quite often, and feel shocked time and again. Had you just finished reading it you would consider me a creative, unorthodox, weird, intelligent, funny, excruciatingly compassionate poet capable of challenging and even changing the world for the sake of the world itself. You'd think of me as your family. You'd feel very close to me.
When I write poetry, I share myself completely. Not all of me in any one poem, but throughout the course of all my poems, I am bare before existence. I hold literally nothing back; every voice must be heard. I also recite poetry and am a thespian, for whatever that's worth to ya'.
Do I know you will experience all that for certain? Can I be sure every one will enjoy the book? 'Course not. I'm just telling you what others who have read my poetry have said to me about it over the years...simply stated. If I had half a pebble for every time someone told me I should try to publish my poetry, from friends to family to grade, and high school teachers to professors to random strangers I've shared some of it with, I'd have an advice-boulder the size of a Volkswagon, I'm guessing. I didn't write because I wanted to get published; getting published was never my goal. Writing the poetry was/is.
The reason I want to publish is because I feel I coauthored all my poems with the whole universe and with all of society and they belong to everyone before they belong to just me. I didn't make up all the words, or all the forms, and the world has been my muse, the galaxies beyond, nature, other people. Poetry is everything, everywhere, and it should be shared. If I can do for one person what the poets I grew up and still love to this day have done for me then all the years I spent and will spend writing poetry are twice justified; once in that poetry is worth writing even if no one ever reads it, and two, everyone is worth entertaining, helping, caring for, challenging, teaching, and brooding over.
I love and dabble in poetry too much for what I write not to be contagious. If you're looking for cliche, never read my book! Whatever type of poetry you prefer, I either already have scads of examples and samples completed I can send you, or I can simply write in that genre, that form, that style, for this or that target audience, about this or that topic, etc. Some of my poems will make you feel like you're sailing through the cosmos in a mad rush to count every star. Others will nuke your mind and haunt your heart outright. Some will challenge your perceptions of yourself and of the universe surrounding you.
Some of my poems will agitate you, even infuriate you, while others will inspire and excite you. Read far enough into In the Midst of Good and Evil and you will face hypothetical scenarios so intense and unnerving to consider, that you'll wonder at times why you don't just smash the cover of the book closed as hard, as quickly and as permanently as you can, for you will be forced to face who and what you are, what your morality entails, where your loyalties lie, how you/to define right and wrong, good and evil, truth, Truth, righteousness, nobility, integrity and more. Expect to fall in love with love all over again too. You'll hear music as you read some of the poems. There are many mysteries to solve and questions to pontificate over, awaiting the readers of a book that I have been working on since I was born, sans those first five years, that is.
You will discover thousands of "made up" creatures/beings, mentally attend thousands of places/worlds you've never been to, with names you've never known, and you will definitely feel like writing poetry of your own, if you don't already, which I hope you do.
I apply poetic license happily, wildly, frequently. I made it a point to do my best to learn the rules of the English language as if my being able to recite them all were the only way to save humanity from annihilation, but I also made it MORE of a point to break every rule I ever learned in In the Midst of Good and Evil. I wrote how I wanted to write, what I wanted to write, to humans, to aliens, to poetry itself, to God, to myself, to my family, friends, and more, and did so from and through thousands of different "speakers" or "voices", such as various animals, inanimate things, tangible or otherwise and I enjoyed doing so and which is more, I'm far from done. I think it's time to write again...wouldn't you agree?
