Blood ties

The poems in the collection titled "Blood Ties' grew out of circumstances and emotional forces at work in my life over the past several years. Death, loss, and grief figure largely in the poems, but there is also the pleasure of loved ones and the resources of nature and poetry.

The poems come from my own writings, and from course work taken with Dr. Kallet: a poetics symposium emphasizing original work and studying contemporary poets and critics, and "Dreamworks," a workshop which opens the surrealist logic of the dream world to the writer as a source for material.

I have arranged the poems in a pattern that roughly reflects my emotional journey. I have divided the poems into three groups, "In Search of a Genealogy," "Present Love," and "Double Helix" which are the titles of the chapters.