World Class Poetry Blog

The Poet Seeks Critiquers For Book Length Book Of Poems
12 December 2007, the poet @ 7:46 pm

Today is the anniversary of the infamous Supreme Court decision that declared George W. Bush president of the U.S., causing a sitting vice president to a very popular chief executive to lose an election. Do you know where you were when that decision came down?

There are events that happen that will always cause you to remember where you were when you heard about them:

• Kennedy’s assassination: I wasn’t born yet.
• Nixon’s resignation: I was six years old so I was in front of the tube watching it unfold live.
• 911: In the car on my way to work as a journalist at Today Newspapers.
• Bush’s victory over Gore by Supreme Court decision: At Fort Knox, training to be a tank platoon leader.

I remember so vividly that I could not focus on my studies at Fort Knox because I’d rather have been reporting and writing about the historic incident. Though it was not within the realm of my duties as a small town reporter, the event had a lot more relevance to my life as a citizen of my country than anything that was going on at Fort Knox. I remember questioning why I had joined the National Guard when every minute of my service was going to render the Constitution I swore an oath to defend and protect a worthless piece of hemp that others in higher positions of trust were not even defending. I still feel that way.

In 2004, my Guard was activated and I spent all of 2005 playing in Rumsfeld’s Sandbox. It was the last straw. I could no longer justify spending my time defending the Constitution when the highest officers of the nation’s defense were not themselves defending. Not only were they not defending the Constitution, but they were doing all they could to dismantle it. And there I was, in my desert camos, remembering the day I joined the National Guard because I wanted to do my part to defend the nation. My service was all in vain.

If there is anything good that came from my experience in the National Guard, and Iraq in particular, it’s that I managed to write enough poems that year to put into a book. I am currently revising and compiling these poems and preparing them for publication. I would like to receive feedback from a handful, select few poets of some stature willing to critique before I submit them to publishers. If you think you might be interested in reading my pre-publication manuscript and give me the harshest critique that you can muster then contact me through the form on this web page. Be sure to include your qualifications. I am only selecting a handful of people to assist me and each person who does so will receive a free copy of the book upon publication and a mention in the acknowledgments.

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