Poetry
The following is a collection of nineteen poems that I wrote between 1991 and 1995 when I was an undergraduate student.
As I continue writing, I find my work growing progressively longer, having moved from poetry, to short fiction, to screenplays, to novels. Although I haven’t written any poetry in a long while, I consider my early attempts at being a poet as valuable in that they taught me to pay special attention to individual words, not just sentences and paragraphs, and to try and calculate the perceived layering of connotation behind subtle changes in word use.
Absinthe Minded
Absinthe is an alcoholic drink made with an extract from wormwood (Artemisia absinthum). It is emerald green in color, very bitter (due to the presence of absinthin), and traditionally poured over a perforated spoonful of sugar into a glass of water. The drink then turns into an opaque white as the essential oils precipitate out of the alcoholic solution. Absinthe was once popular among artists and writers and was used by Van Gogh, Baudelaire, Verlaine, Poe, Oscar Wilde, and Ernest Hemingway, just to name a few. It was believed to stimulate creativity. However, in the 1850’s, there began to be concern about the results of chronic use. Such use was believed to produce a syndrome, called absinthism, which was characterized by addiction, hyperexcitability, and hallucinations. Subsequently, absinthe was banned in many countries in the beginning of the 1900’s.