(Photo: Free Online)
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.
Walt Whitman (1819-1892)
Good Sunday!
If you are here right now, then you are a reader – regardless of how much of my text you will read (imagine: I arrived at this no-brainer-conclusion all by myself…gives out a sneaky smile…). Then, of course, there is the writer in you. And as one, you know how the mysterious concept called “inspiration” works at times (or how it doesn’t). William S. Peters Sr. to whom I am proud to refer as my publisher has done it again; namely, envisioning and implementing together with Jamie Bond the Year of the Poet – monthly poetry books birthed through collaboration between Inner Child Press Ltd. (ICP) and The Creating Calm Publishing Group.
In 2014, the permanent contributors from among the large number of the ICP authors had included Jamie Bond, Gail Weston Shazor, Albert ‘Infinite’ Carrasco, Siddartha Beth Pierce, Janet P. Caldwell, June ‘Bugg’ Barefield, Debbie M. Allen, Tony Henninger, Joe DaVerbal Minddancer, Robert Gibbons, Neetu Wali, Shareef Abdur-Rasheed, Kimberly Burnham and William S. Peters, Sr. In the new year, there will be several new names, including Ann White, Keith Alan Hamilton, Teresa E. Gallion, Katherine Wyatt and myself. I know the remarkable penmanship of all these dear individuals and our shared passion for poetry is evident in every communication we have within or outside the territories of the books of mention. Then, there are featured poets for each month outside the “Core” contributors to poetry, all of whom have the same dedication to this literary art. As the ICP web page states, “[t]he objective is to bring the poetry community together with the various cross demographic representations found in gender, religion, geography, culture and ethnicity. We hope you enjoy the myriad of perspectives represented here (The Year of the Poet).”
2015 will be filled with writing and reading poems for me each month (if not far more often). I want to hope you will be a reader of these poetry books that are bound to surprise you with the promised beauty of one poem after another, month after month.
May the new year be and become all that you wish it to be and become for yourself and your loved ones! I look forward to your visit in 2015.