My new poetry collection now available from Amazon

In addition to buying directly from Kelsay Books, you can now purchase my new poetry collection, Dark Fathers, from Amazon.

May you all know peace and happiness this night and hereafter.

The best response to awe is silence.

May you all know peace and happiness this night and after.

Several of my books of poetry are available from the Library of Virginia.

Several of my books of poetry are available from the Library of Virginia.

My new collection of poetry, Dark Fathers, is available at five branches of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library.

My new collection of poetry, Dark Fathers, is available at five branches of the Central Rappahannock Regional Library.

My new collection of poetry, Dark Fathers, is available at the Orange County Public Library.

My new collection of poetry, Dark Fathers, is available at the Orange County Public Library.

A worthwhile read--Review: The Trembling Answers

The Trembling Answers by Craig Morgan Teicher
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In this very personal and moving collection, Craig Morgan Teicher explores his own biography. We feel his worry and pain as a father of a health young girl and a very sick boy. We listen to his love for his wife, his children, for the mother he lost when he was young, for the housekeeper who raised him, for the father who loved only through his emotional distance.

Some of the lines are very fine, such as:

...She lived and she grows
like joy spreading from the syllables
of songs.

Or

I could hold that rock
and rewind time and find myself
standing between verb tenses.

Or

I can divide all life
into breath and waiting
for the next breath, and
the calm in the troughs
between.

Some of the poems are complete, and touching, and real. You read the collection and imagine you are listening to a friend, pretending you know them, as much as any human can know another. A worthwhile read.




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A rare angular music---Review: Night Angler

Night Angler by Geffrey Davis
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

"Night Angler" is a truly fine collection of poems by Geffrey Davis, as he meditates on the meaning of fatherhood. His own father failed that role but finally asks for some forgiveness. The poet himself tries to learn and be truer to the name, Father. The title and title poems suggest a man who fishes the night for meaning and faith and forgiveness and hope.

Dear Boy: In the beginning,
father was a fear I wanted

to call love. For years I waded
heart-deep into that doubt

for version of my name
I could, with some forgiveness,

cast before your image.
Dear Boy: Here's my hand---

because your arrival has
mended the grave current

of time, in the beginning
I was talking to you.

The language is truly fine. The emotion personal yet universal, poetic yet deep and real.

...light creeps
all across a distinct range of mountain,

stunning plateau of birds into the original
sweetness of song. We want to understand this---

according to our appetite for pulling
a rare, angular music from the body's

dark cathedral. Or we grow stubborn
for the wild severity of wind

plying trees. We want the vastness of that
motion, the sleep. We desire so much from more.

Davis succeeds in "pulling a rare, angular music" from his desire and body, singing us some of that "vastness of motion" we all want to hear--- and to be.


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View 10-Minute plays written and performed by Creative Writing & Theater students at Germanna Community College - Fall 2019

You can view 10-Minute plays written by students in my Creative Writing class and performed by Austin Fitzhugh's Theater students at Germanna Community College Fall semester 2019 on my YouTube channel:

The Grave written by Emily Rowland

Chained written by Bob Pacific

Thank you Haunted Waters Press for featuring me in your Contributor Profiles.

Thank you Haunted Waters Press for featuring me in your Contributor Profiles.

Join me on December 22 (and a number of other poets Dec. 21-22) for a poetry reading in Blacksburg, VA to celebrate "The Longest Night" of the year

Join me (and a number of other poets) for a poetry reading in Blacksburg, VA to celebrate "The Longest Night" of the year with readings on both Saturday December 21 and Sunday the 22nd.

I will be reading at 4:30 p.m. on Sunday from my newest 2 books and offering signed copies of my collections for sale.

My new collection of poetry is now available from Kelsay Books.

My new collection of poetry is now available from Kelsay Books.

You can purchase it HERE.

Three of my poems have been accepted to appear in The MacGuffin Volume 36.2 scheduled for Spring 0f 2020

Three of my poems have been accepted to appear in The MacGuffin Volume 36.2 scheduled for Spring 0f 2020. Thank you Gordon Krupsky, Managing Editor.

Review: The Last Mastodon

The Last Mastodon by Christina Olson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In "The Last Mastodon," Christina Olson attempts to weave her personal dealing with death, the mastodon and its discovery and paleontology, Thomas Jefferson's eagerness to explore and find if mastodons still lived along with his keeping of slaves and power over Sally Hemings. At the same time, Olson tries to weave prose poems, disjointed thoughts and bits from her readings, with more carefully crafted free verse. Finally, she tries to weave humor (dark and light) with deeper emotion.

I think, overall, this weaving works more than it fails. There is deep feeling here along with thought. The small chapbook is certainly worth reading at least once. The central poem, "Among the Bones," itself alone is worthy enough.

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