An Author’s Note
The Sound is a location, my place of origin and womb of words, but it is also an aspiration and aural guide. “The sound is the gold in the ore,” Frost wrote. One hears something and wants to make a corresponding sound. I have been hard of hearing all my life, catching vowels more than consonants, so the sound I follow is watery. I hope you can hear it too.
Assembling this book has allowed me to revise some earlier work. No revision in a poem is minor, but some changes may be noticeable only to me. I have not grouped poems by subject or genre, but have allowed for accidental discoveries as well as a kind of walking backwards.
A writer of narrative and dramatic poetry requires more room than a writer of lyrics. Excerpting long poems is unfair to them, but one also wants to represent the range of effort over decades. Here readers will find the maverick products of a writer who does not want to repeat himself. I have not excerpted my verse novels, plays, and libretti but have made room to put one longer poem, “The Country I Remember,” back into print.
I am not the product of a creative writing program but of my own dilatory learning. Yet I have been lucky in my friendships with other writers, several of whom have offered advice and assistance over the years. They know who they are. My greatest debt is acknowledged in the book’s dedication.