Bullets for Boomers

Bank of China rated #1 from 4,000 entries in the

Writer’s Digest Non-Rhyming Poetry Writing Competition of 2002

Reviewed by Robert Pinsky (U.S. Poet Laureate) as...

…vigorous, vivid and gritty…

Years ago, poetry was considered the language of the common man. People prided themselves on their ability to recite poems. Poems told stories that were easily understood and passed down through generations. Many of Shakespeare’s sonnets were simple expressions that were easily understood and appreciated by the masses.

I have wanted to publish a book like this ever since I won the Writers Digest competition in 2002 but I couldn’t overcome my insecurity that my poems were not esoteric enough… that “those in the know” would laugh at their simplicity and that somehow I just didn’t get it and everyone else knew something about poetry that I didn’t.

Then I realized that there are literally hundreds of books on how to structure a poem. The reason ‘free verse’ is more popular than rhyming verse is because the “experts” over time have made the rules for rhyming poetry so complicated that it is much simpler to express oneself freely than to struggle with the rules. Indeed, there are times when the textbook structure dulls the meaning. Where possible, I try to follow the rules for rhyming but when the meaning or rhythm of the line or stanza is negatively affected by the rules, I say ‘codswallop’ and do what sounds best to the ear.

So please, no comments or lectures that line “17 has too many syllables”, etc… I know, I get it. I simply choose to ignore it. 

“Poetry is finer and more philosophical than history; for poetry expresses the universal, and history only the particular.” — Aristotle