After the lightning storm: A collection of original poetry

After the Lightning Storm is a collection of poems whose subject matter ranges from a dust devil in a cotton field outside of Abernathy, Texas, to a series of vignettes about a relationship, its subtleties and eventual decline. Other poems speak either directly or obliquely to literary predecessors, writers such as John Milton, John Berryman and Michel Foucault. Poems that reflect on the self, on God, on the fear of death, appear next to poems about love-notes tucked inside of old books, and Christmas parades that march through the business district of a small town. In every instance, though, the poems in this manuscript address moments of disruptions, when the veneer shifts and after doing so, everything shines in a slightly different light. These differences capture emotional discoveries, the pathos of a situation, and rarely seek a summarized ending, but arrive instead at an extension of the original understanding.
Formally, the manuscript is comprised of poems written in strict forms, such as triolets and sonnets, as well as a number of poems written in free verse. This combination allows the collection a flexibility of tone: from the rigidly structured to the open-ended. As such, the structuring of the manuscript echoes its underlying thematic concept of trying to control disruptions that occur in daily life.