A poetry recital

The story behind the reading of my poems represents an age challenge that I am not alone in trying to solve. I refer to the existential challenge embodied in the experience of angst that periodically plagues every individual. The composition of existential angst varies from person to person. No two individuals experience angst in the same manner and their manner of discharging their psychological frustration is as varied. My version of this has generally revolved around the collective state of America's body politic and it subsequent spiritual deterioration.Those who have read my blogs will understand that when I use the term I am not referring to organized religion. I have been a lifelong atheist. Recent events involving attempts by evangelical fundamentalist to replace our democracy with a form of theocracy that is only slightly more liberal than the Taliban has only reinforced my suspicion of orgnized religion. The view that organized religion represented a political struggle, involving unregistered political bodies has become a fixed belief that is unlikely change during my life time. I give credit to the authors of the original bible for crafting a piece of polical propaganda whose content is not without merit, but its intent has been political nature, ensuring as it does that those who follow it embrace codified forms of behavior.

It is for these reasons that I come to embrace the term spirituality as a better term for addressing humankind's collective state, a task that is far from easy, especially within a artistic context. Artistic challenges aside however, I have always found it easier to express my views of mankind's struggles through images and prose. Artistic blocks have almost always occured when the creative process has become unduly influenced by theological precepts or ideological dogma. The inclusive nature of spirituality provides me with a way of speaking to the collective state of humankind while also allowing for artistic expression. And at the time of compiling the pieces in question I was in desperate need of an approach that could serve both the demands of the spirit and the intellect. Like many people my angst was driven by the times I was living in. Penned just before President Obama decided to run for office, I found my country on the edge of a frightening precipice, one marked just not by economic collapse but by a meanness of spirit that I had never witnessed before. It would come as no surprise to me that the FBI would later report that the number of online hate groups had trippled by the end of Obama's first term. It wasn't simply that America's political institutions shown themselves to be broken beyond repair, something far profound was taking place wihin the psyche and soul of America's voters. At least that is how I had come to see the events around me, as confirmation of a spiritual fissure not even Ronald Regan and his disastrous embrace of trickle-down economics had been able to create. Yes. I had seen friends fiercely debate Reagon's ruinous agenda, and bigoted elements of society still found expression but it also still possible to discern the element of empathy and caring. Reagon had always opposed illegal immigration but had also never chosen to demonize immigrants in the manner that the current administration does. The poems proved my way of giving voice to the events that I saw around in a way that spoke the devolution of the American spirit.

It is worth noting that the process of not only cathartic but restorative as well. During the writing process I had challenged myself to express not only the corrosive effects of phenomena's such as racism, but to also remind readers of those qualitative experiences that allowed individuals to transcend their circumstances. This committment resulted in pieces on baseball, love and the blessing bestowed on people by mentors and teachers. By the time I had finished the book of poems I had learned valuable lessons that allowed me to balance my cynacism with a renewed belief in love and transformation. I would go on to self publish the pieces, and even today have begun revising them in the hopes of printing a revised version of the work. The decision to recite seemed a natural expression of my belief that language is not a static entity, that it is something to be experienced not just read like a bankers report. Thus my decision to share not only the process by which I came to write the pieces, but to also allow readers to hear the pieces as they were first written., as expressions of our nation's wounded but stil vital spirit