I’ve been revisiting old poetry, thinking of taking up the poet’s quill again… It’s poetry-writing in which I took my Master’s degree, but I discovered “creative nonfiction” (the personal essay) late in the game, and it’s that genre I really fell in love with. They didn’t offer a degree in creative nonfiction, anyway, or I might have switched. And then the BLOG came along—a venue exactly, perfectly designed for creative nonfiction… which is why I love writing for it.

In any case, I’ve been thinking of dusting off my poetry quill (no, I don’t really have one—although I used to have a collection of fountain pens I loved to use when I was poetry-writing—but anyway, it’s a metaphorical quill) and see about writing some new poetry. So I”ve gotten out my Master’s thesis, to look over some of my old work and get in the mood, in a manner of speaking.

I write in free verse—not end-rhymed, and not in counted syllables or matching meter—except for one little piece that I still love, even though it has end-rhymes, which I usually avoid like plague. It’s the first piece I ever had published, if memory serves, in a magazine that even writers have never heard of.

PORTOFINO

Sunset citrus drenches stucco

fronts that face the street

which curves around the water’s

edge and Portofino’s fleet

of brass-railed wooden vessels

swaying anchored for the eve—

still ample light for leather men

to mend the fish-nets’ weave.

.