Minding the Gaps

Written in blank verse, sonnet, ballad stanza and terza rima (among others), this collection of formalist poetry spans John’s six chapbooks and other selections of published and unpublished poems.

“What especially strikes me about [John's poems] is the way that they virtually all start with something very specific - a landscape, a memory, an anecdote - which is recorded with meticulous care and accuracy, so that we have a strong visual impression of the ‘facts’ that John is talking about, and then almost imperceptibly they begin to embody something wider and more general, something human and humane, which a reader with wholly different life-experiences can share and enter into.”

"For thirty-two years, at all times of day or night, I have watched my husband writing poems. He chooses a subject, a form, a tonality. He searches for rhyming words and fights to constrain his thought to a chosen pattern. I have lived with his frustration and delight. Penning poetry defines what and who he is. For family and friends in the old world and the new, he is our father, our uncle, our mate and our poet."

Available for purchase on Amazon