Many heartfelt thanks to all who have read my first book of poetry, Unmasked; most particularly for your responses. These have been extremely insightful to me. Your own personal responses have given me new windows into understanding the un-thought avenues that my poetry have lead each one of you. This has been the most exciting and fruitful experience hearing and reading your feed-backs. And in that, I have been able to expand and deeply appreciate how poetry is always in the “eye of the reader” not the poet’s per-SE. I am happy and very pleased that my own personal, idiosyncratic experiences and affects and emotions did not preclude nor color your own personal emotional lives. I feel that poet and readers are in a mutual human cocoon where there are no boundaries that separate us from our mutual humanity. THANK YOU!
*I attempted to send a message to you through the contact page, but it never seemed to go. I copied and pasted it below, so if you get these words more than once I apologize.
Paul,
I’m glad you liked the review I wrote about your book for the U.S. Review of Books, and I also appreciate the encouraging note in reply. Few authors take the time to do that when they like a review.
I once had a print of a painting a good friend of mine did. It was of a knight in full armor, holding out his sword yet standing back in the shadows. Dick Levon’s painting and your own poem, “The Armadillo,” poignantly reminded me of both that painting and the feelings it once evoked in me. It’s fascinating how all of us hail from a variety of cultural backgrounds and vastly different experiences and yet have commonalities that transcend all of that.
Like you, I’m a fellow journeyer on the path to understanding and always enjoy reading the heart cries of similar travelers. The majority of the books I read to review I never hang onto. Yours, I will keep to reread from time to time. Thanks for penning such an honest and well-composed collection of poetry and for offering it up for others to appreciate.
Blessings,
John