In college, I was torn between music, poetry, and religion. I ended up choosing music, but loaded my coursework nonetheless with poetry classes. As a part of those poetry classes, we would write “explications.” In these explications, we would dissect poems of the great poets. We would analyze every nook and cranny, leaving no question unanswered, no rhythm unspecified, no alliteration unnoticed. If we didn’t know specifically what the poet was expressing, we’d at least provide a hypothesis, based on the evidence we’d unearthed.

One of my roommates in college was an artist – an abstract artist. I would ask him, “What are you trying to say with this piece?” and he would say, “Whatever you want it to say.” That always bugged me. But I realize there’s a place for his work. He opened my mind.

With the poems I offer here, I want to leave room for you to interpret. However, if you are curious as to what I was thinking, I’m going to provide a brief comment on each poem. It will be the first comment under each piece. If you’d prefer NOT to know what I was thinking and let the piece become something fresh to you and your interpretation, by all means, let it be. Just skip the first comment.

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