A celebration

After many years of slow work, I am celebrating the creation of Present Sense Press and the publication of my first book of poetry.

Needle is now available in softcover for $10 U.S.

Spare and simple, this book is like a pebble in a gravel wash, a rain drop in a storm, a dead leaf in a ditch. It is ordinary, unassuming. But like the pebble, the water drop, the leaf, it also contains in it the whole story, a whole world. Each poem is everything. The whole book is a whole. And in its simple directness it both hides and reveals. 

For years I have felt drawn to create a poem that would "say it all." What would I write if I could only write one book? I have a deeply held intuition that at its center, our infinitely complex world is unimaginably simple. And that it would take a simple structure to convey this. Or an impossibly complex one—such as the world itself.

The world is itself. Poems—at least some poems—are nodes of activity. I am fascinated by Lorine Niedecker's poetic condensing, by H.D.'s powerful images. How to use language to collect and gather energy? How do words make something happen inside? How do they shift our consciousness?

This book is a touchstone for me. I return to it repeatedly when I need to find my way home, to my soul home. Any one poem can be a doorway to another world. It all points to what is already and always here at all times The poems themselves are not important; what they hold inside is everything. May they support you in knowing that you are enough, right now, just as you are.

To purchase copies of Needle, visit www.presentsensepress.com. If you are looking for a holiday gift, all orders recieved by this Thursday, December 9th will be mailed this Friday the 10th.