I have written poems since I was about 7 years old. Some of my earliest attempts were about cats and spaceships. By high school, I had read vast amounts of classic poetry, and tried to get a good grasp on the history and traditions of the form. Then music kicked in to stir the pot in my head even more.

Influences include T. S. Eliot, Poe, Shelley, my fellow modern poets, and the power of music, with the brilliant lyrics of Bob Dylan, Rush, Yes, and others. I regularly produce haiku, and there are occasional limericks & cinquains, but most other standard forms just bore me.

About half the time, I write poems by hand, and the other half are written on scrap paper. I have never found a little notebook that I found comfortable. Either they fall apart in my pocket, or they fold over awkwardly, or the little spiral is under my hand when I try to write … ugh. And big notebooks are just awkward and obvious. The last two decades, I usually just fold a sheet of paper in quarters and take a few sheets with me when I’m out watching live music. Since most of my pieces actually fit on a quarter sheet, I usually start with that quarter sheet in mind. If the poem keeps going, I try to fill the next quarter sheet and so on.

My first poem (actually two of them) appeared in Dreams & Nightmares #9 back in October, 1986. (7/30/2024 note: and I just sold yet another poem to them, they’re still around.)

I have at least 1500 poems in my archive. Many of them are just mainstream observations that I can never find markets for. But if I add ghosts or flying saucers, they fit into the regular sci-fi/fantasy/weird places. Most of them have never appeared anywhere, but the lists of credits on the new pages will show all the ones that did find homes. I have enough to fill about 500 pages of chapbooks, and really need to get some more of those composed.