Homecoming
My Poems
My Publications
Teach/Speaking
Criticals
Poetry Reviews
Poetry FAQ
Recommended
Anthology
Links | | The author tying his shoes at
Lewis Carroll’s grave |
(Note: If you’d like to immediately explore the parts of this site offering resources and information and instruction for poets and writers, click on Recommended first, then its subpages; Links; and, later, Criticals, which is Under Construction.) 
I’m a poet, and I’ve taught creative writing for over 20 years. I was born in Brookfield, Missouri, but my folks and I moved to Southern California when I was five. Unlike T. S. Eliot, who was a good ol’ boy from Missouri also, I’ve not developed a fancy accent, but sound more like a native Californian, with just a wispy hint of the Southern in words like “warshcloth.” During my first two years of marketing, I had a tremendous amount of luck and success in placing poems in the top literary journals—before declining into a prolonged period of autism, where I didn’t even have the energy to Windex off breath smudges from my bell jar.That said, I’m back to regularly writing and sending it out and feel completely re-engaged with my “Right Life.” And I’m enjoying myself thoroughly. One of the things that has changed is attitude. I’ve taped an invisible sign to my oak roll top and the inside curve of my skull: “It’s not about you.” Joseph Campbell in his The Hero with a Thousand Faces describes the monomyth*, the call to your own life, as basically Call to Adventure, Trial and Initiation, and Return. According to a Cistercian version of the Grail Quest, “when the knights of Arthur’s court rode forth to adventure, they thought it would be disgraceful to start out in a group, but each entered the forest alone at a point that he had chosen, ‘there where he saw it most dark, and he found no way or path.’” Campbell thought of this as a glorious celebration of the individual, a fundamental contribution of Western mythology to world thought. But it would all be for nothing if you didn’t return to society with what you had learned. As always, Campbell, here in collaboration with Dante, puts it most eloquently: Instead of retirement to the forest, however, the next stage is to be of usefulness, bestowal. “After our own proper perfection, which is acquired in manhood, ” Dante writes, “that perfection should also come which enlightens not only ourselves, but others.” One of the purposes of this website is to return to the literary community what I’ve personally learned. I offer here an annotated selection of some of the books that have been most important to me, with an emphasis on what will assist my fellow poets; links that will entertain but also lead to better things (better facility with various rhetorical devices, on-line reference works for the writer, the best current literary magazines and the like); software of benefit to writers, and its customization to make the creative process easier; and a new section of what I call Criticals, articles and interviews featuring contemporary poets. I’ve finished a long article-interview with J. D. McClatchy, but would like to see if I can find a crib for the bulky dinosaur (not you, Sandy) in one of the literary magazines, before I post it. Also, under construction are various sections such as Poetry FAQ, where I’ll offer advice on practical and quirky issues. I also hope you’ll like the posting of my own poems, as well as the potpourri of music cds I’ve collected and recommend.The resumé below is the official me, but I hope, through the various shards scattered throughout this site, a jigsaw mosaic of a mirror, you’ll come to know me better—and find assistance too for your own quest. (By following the crumbs of light into the forest?) Though I’m often a terrible correspondent (my friends have learned this is one of my many flaws and put up with it), you can write to me HERE.
*I just recently discovered JC plucked this term from JJ’s Finnigans Wake.  | |
EDUCATION | 1973 - 1975 M.A. | California State University, Long Beach, English, 1975. G.P.A. 4.0 | | 1969 - 1973 B.A. | California State University, Long Beach, “Magna Cum Laude,” Major in English, Minor in Music, 1973. Special Creative Writing Emphasis. |
WORK EXPERIENCE  | Current |
| Poet. Published in The New Yorker, Yale Review, Sewanee Review, Virginia Quarterly Review, Antioch Review, Kenyon Review, North American Review, Salmagundi, Denver Quarterly, Wisconsin Review, Midwest Quarterly, Beloit Poetry Journal, Nimrod, Cimmaron Review, The Journal, Alabama Literary Review, Poetry East, Nightsun, Sycamore Review (from Purdue University), Jacaranda Review (from U.C.L.A.), and many others. Three poems published by Milkweed Editions in Mixed Voices. Reprint of poem “Blue Spruce” in St. Martin Press’s Bedford Anthology of Literature, Fourth Edition and Concise Edition, and in other anthologies. A finalist in six national contests. Featured poet on 1989 Arts Alive (broadcast from California State University, Long Beach). Read at the 1990 Los Angeles Poetry Festival at the Long Beach Museum of Art. Read at Henry Miller House in Big Sur. First poetry manuscript, Homecoming, endorsed by poets J. D. McClatchy (editor of Yale Review and author of White Paper: On Contemporary American Poetry), David St. John, Donald Revell, and Billy Collins, and a finalist in the prestigious Pitt Poetry Series. | | 3/98 - Present |
| Instructor, UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. Creative Writing classes. Taught Introduction to Poetry Writing, and a class in the advanced use of rhetorical devices and fresh approaches to language use in writing, The Potent Word. | | 8/84 - 5/05 |
| Instructor (adjunct), Long Beach City College. Creative Writing and Composition classes. Judge for the fifth annual Jacaranda essay contest. Apply contemporary rhetorical theory—idea-generating, Francis Christensen’s cumulative sentence, creativity theory, logic, argumentative writing, use of rhetorical devices, differentiation between concrete and abstract words, etc. | | Spring 1985 |
| Instructor, California School of Professional Psychology (L.A.), an accredited institution for Ph.D. students. Taught “Understanding the Arts: Poetry, Literature, Painting, Film, and Music in the Twentieth Century.” Covered creativity theory, the right hemisphere and its relationship to generating and understanding contemporary art, surrealism, Jung and his concept of art, language and psychological well-being, Romanticism and its influence, and understanding metaphor. | | 8/84 - 12/85 |
| Contributing Editor/Garden Columnist for Valley magazine. | | 1/83 - 8/83 |
| Arts Editor for The Hollywood Post, Hollywood, CA. Supervised all magazine activity related to the arts; recruited staff; approved publication of arts articles; conducted interviews of award-winning poets; contributed reviews of plays, books, films, musical performances, and records. | | The Lost Years |
| | | 10/78 - 2/79 |
| Teacher, Marguerita, Alhambra City District, Alhambra, CA. Before my Valium quit having its desired effect. | | 1976 - 1978 |
| Supervisor of Media Section for the Fine Arts/Media Resources Department of the Library at California State University, Long Beach. | | 1978 |
| Programmer/Announcer for KSUL, CSULB’s radio station, Long Beach, CA. Wrote and performed scripts for a night-time radio show featuring classical music and humor. |
HONORS AND ACTIVITIES | Post-Graduate |
| The Hungry Mind Review singled out three of my poems in Milkweed Editions’ Mixed Voices as being premium. A composer in the Twin Cities, Randall Davidson, noticed a poem of mine, “Fugue,” in Milkweed Editions’ Mixed Voices, and set it to music. It was featured on a Thanksgiving day program, conducted by Philip Brunelle, presided over by Garrison Keillor. Elected Member of the Poetry Society of America, a formerly exclusive organization whose membership has included Robert Frost, Carl Sandburg, Wallace Stevens, Robert Penn Warren, and others. Recently membership has been opened to a wider group. | | CSULB |
| Member of Kappa Delta Pi, National Honor Society for Education.
Member of Phi Delta Kappa, National Professional Honor Society.
Publication of poetry in Gambit, CSULB literary magazine.
Publication of poetry in professional publications, Surfside Review and Cyclo*Flame.
Performed original piano compositions for School of Education Commencement. | | High School |
| Member of the California Scholarship Federation; awarded Life Membership.
Certificate as a CSF Sealbearer; awarded certificate for outstanding scholastic achievement by Phi Beta Kappa.
Appeared in Merit’s Who’s Who Among High School Students; 1968-1969.
Student Editor for Parnassus, Millikan High’s creative writing anthology.
First place winner in the poetry category of 1968 Corydon Creative Writing Contest. |
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I’m currently writing a novel in verse, The Color of the Wind.
| I was Programmer/Announcer for KSUL, CSULB’s radio station, Long Beach, CA. I wrote and performed scripts for a night-time radio show featuring classical music and humor. | | My poetry was featured on Arts Alive, a local cable broadcast which reaches 80,000 subscribers. | | I hosted my own long-running radio program Computer Forum, during which I discussed computer software for writers and computer enthusiasts. This was syndicated by Let’s Talk Radio. |
An upcoming section of articles and interviews, Criticals. Also planned are shorter reviews of poetry books and an idiosyncratic Poetry FAQ, with some longer answers appended. Already in progress is a personal Anthology of writings by friends and professionals and professional friends. |
