Shadows of the Trees: Poems & Prose

INTRODUCTION

I wrote this poetry collection over a consecutive eight-year period. Each chapter is presented chronologically from the inception date in 1990 while I lived in Maine. Some poems are dark, some poems are sophomoric, and some poems are impetuous like a stream of consciousness. Besides correcting format and typographical errors, I have not altered the original poems but retained the blemishes, bluster, and bombastic tone. As I review my unrefined verses today I am not sure exactly what was firing in my teenage synapses. They speak with the voice of decades younger me looking to the future with uncertainty, mystery, and wonder.

Before 1989 I only read poetry required in school which I thought was archaic and tedious. Then my friend Matthew Murphy introduced me to the nineteen-sixties rock band "The Doors" featuring the mystical and cryptic lyrics written by the lead singer, Jim Morrison. The Doors released six albums between 1967 and 1971 and I listened to them repetitively. I was obsessed. After reading the biography "No One Here Gets Out Of Alive" (Hopkins and Sugerman), I discovered Jim Morrison self-published two poetry books.

Before the Internet, the best way to get information was at the local library. Therefore, I asked my high school librarian to request "The Lords and The New Creatures" (Morrison). Within a few weeks, it arrived on loan from another library. Jim Morrison's poetry resonated more to me than a decade of formal education. Finally, I realized what my English Literature teachers were trying to inculcate me with Elizabethan Sonnets by William Shakespeare or Victorian-era poems by Emily Dickinson. Poems were lyrics to melodies of the mind.

“Nothing else can survive a holocaust, but poetry and songs. No one can remember an entire novel. No one can describe a film, a piece of sculpture, a painting. But so long as there are human beings, songs and poetry can continue.” -Jim Morrison (Wilderness) 

Poetry is a literary way to adroitly express ideas and concepts more concisely than writing a novel. Poems are the photographs of literature where the observer can extract more words from it with each viewing. Poetry asks probing questions, evokes deep emotions, and eludes monolithic explanations. My poetry is a time capsule of a young man searching for solutions while offering none. 

During the height of my teenage angst, I began to write poems on scraps of paper. Each one meticulously noted the date of creation and contained more spelling errors than I could identify. I recorded ideas whenever they manifested in my mind either at home, in school, or at bedtime. I collected them and would eventually type them into a crude printed version entitled "Shadows of the Trees" - a progenitor to this volume.

 

Since I was on my graduating class yearbook staff, I submitted two poems in the 1991 Shead High School Oracle. My first published verses were aptly named "Oracle Opening" and "Oracle Closing". Also retained for printed posterity are two other poems - "Friendly Stranger" and Dance of the Dead" - adapted from original music videos I created for Television Production class.

Thank you, Jim Morrison, for opening my mind and instilling a lifelong love of appreciating the written word. He not only inspired me to write poetry but self-publish my book of poems. These are my "Shadows of the Trees" harking back from another time, another place, and another century.

Author's Note

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