Introduction to My Poetry

Where did my feelings for poetry come from?  I'm not sure. I think first of all I have always been a voracious reader and that  was the beginning -- my  love for words -- that is what poetry is all about. In the final analysis poetry is not about expressing ideas, it is expressing one's feelings about what is important to him or her in language that tends to use imagery and plumbs the depths of meaning and forces the reader to see relationships in a new light. In addition, these words are to be read out loud and therefore the sound pattern becomes essential. The poetry must flow and most poetry includes rhyme. Finding the right word that rhymes is always a challenge.

I wrote poetry when I was a young man in military service, about nature and religion.  Later, when I was serving my first mission,   I  shared one of my poems  with a certain fellow missionary,  Hermana (Sister) Avon Allen,  who was very impressed.    She asked if I would copy the poem for her,  which I did,  and that was one of many moments in which we knew that we had much in common and shared something important. 

       Avon and I, Denver, Colorado, Spanish American Mission 1947

After Hermana Allen was released from her mission and I was still serving mine,  we corresponded for two years and our relationship went from friendship to love.  We wrote each other poems and sent them to each other,  which poems bring back happy memories to me of the promise of a life together which we shared  at that time.

             Some of my letters to Avon which I wrote during my mission

After our marriage,  I didn't write more poetry until 2010 when my dear Avon,  wife of sixty years had to take up residence in a nursing home because of her many health problems.  I wanted to express my deepest feelings for Avon now that she was no longer able to live with me,  and I felt that prose would not be adequate. My first attempts were sporadic and not of the quality I desired, but  I set to work in earnest and now have written more poems recently, almost all about Avon.   

I have no illusions about the quality of what I have written. It is just an honest attempt to put into verse what I couldn’t say in prose. I hope that anyone who reads it understands that these verses tell the reader about me and my feelings about Avon. There are others, some of a philosophical or humorous nature that I will share, but my poetry is  mostly about the void I feel now that Avon is  in a world of her own due to the disease of  Alzhiemers.

I have written a prose explanation for many of the poems  which explains how the verses came about.   Writing poetry has been an enjoyable exercise for me, in a way, kind of a catharsis. I have no idea what the reaction might be of those who read it. 

I wanted to share these poems with family members,  and my daughters have encouraged me to share them on this blog.  So here we go.