Love Her Blind & Other Poems is an emotionally-centered collection focused on themes of romantic betrayal, childhood violence, family memory, aging, faith, & mental illness. What inspired you to write this collection?

Well, life inspired me to write this collection, as pointedly, and as honestly as I can articulate. You see, while I certainly read and always loved poetry as a kid and as an adult in college, I have to say that my actual poetry instructors in college played a larger influence to me, upon me, as a young adult and later as an older adult; because they were there, literally and metaphorically, in my face. And what I got from my poetry instructors, meeting Amiri Baraka, and Nikki Giovanni, was more than just “write what you know” but also write what haunts you, what you vividly recall, what you yearn for and why, be bold with it and don’t hold back. Let it all out there on the page and acknowledge that it just isn’t for everyone. It’s for the select few who get it and want to get it. So in a long answer, life inspired me to write this collection, albeit alot of it in hindsight. 

Were there poems that were especially difficult—or especially healing—to write?

Most were difficult, some more than others. “My Grandfather’s God” was about how I perceived this nearly mythic man, who was the first man, perhaps only man, who showed me through his actions, that a man doesn’t have to bully others or even necessarily manifest physicality (although he did) to be a man, and that a man can be quite kind, shockingly gentle to the point of perhaps seeming feminine at times, but able to do so and be very secure in that overall encasement of masculinity, humble yet confident, small but strong, empathic but able to go a few rounds if need be. Other poems were more difficult to write, such as “Bicycle Rider,” because even typing this response, I can feel the stiffness of my back against the car interior as I pedaled. But it’s through releasing and sharing that we ultimately grow and creativity is espoused and concurrently strengthened.  

Do images usually arrive before the poem’s meaning, or does the meaning lead you toward particular images?

Oh, absolutely! And this is as true, if not more so, with fiction, as it is with poetry. But I remember my poetry instructor in college, whom I can’t and won’t forget, told us once that a poem, a single poem, should strike the reader in the head like a sudden, shocking bolt of lightning. That bolt can communicate love, compassion, awe, a stark memory, whatever, but a poem should carry and give at least one vivid image the reader can’t shake even if they wanted to. And if I did that, than I did my job in poetry. For fiction, it’s tougher, to me at least, because each scene should function as a short story in a way, that’s part of much broader, wider thesis about the human cycle. But we learn through imagery, we communicate through them, we absorb them on social media, on TV, online; and if we write, we tell stories through images written out and when we read we absorb images that the brain creates. And those images we create in our brains are often stronger and more long-lasting than anything we could ever see literally. 

What do you hope readers are still thinking about after they close the book? 

Well, I hope they come away feeling moved, maybe angered, maybe saddened, maybe enlightened or entertained; but I don’t want them bored or apathetic, because you can get that anywhere; and if something I’ve written or will write, causes fear, than I want that fear married to reflection on where that bottomless pit exists for them and why its so dark for them. The best poetry, I think, and the best fiction, too, is like a mirror the author holds up to you and says “Look into this. I’ve been where you were, where you’re headed, where you’ve thought and I get it. I want to share the both sides of this mirror with you. Let’s both dive in, from our own sides.” I want readers motivated to feel. And that’s the very least, the very least, job of anything any writer writes whether it’s poetry, fiction, or even non-fiction. 

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