The Poetry

I suppose it would have been the spring of 1992 that I first submitted poetry to a publisher. There was a local fellow named Herb Barrett who was an editor of a non-profit magazine called Tidepool that published a chap book annually. It described itself as a magazine of haiku and short poetry and it always impressed me how many of the contained poems had come from poets all over the world. I had poetry published in Tidepool 9, 10 and eleven. I submitted poetry for the twelfth issue but sadly Herb Barrett passed away that year and there would be no more Tidepools. The man was a good poet and a real humanitarian and I would love to quote his editorial from Tidepool 10 but I would not know where to even start the search for his family's permission.

Anyways, the first seven poems that I've posted here are what I have had published previously in Tidepool. The seven are aesthetically speaking, fairly elegant by my standards and I believe that most of them came from a personal period where I listened to only classical music for about six years or so, an exception would be the site's namesake "The Comforting Chair" which is of a much older vintage. I'll add that "The New Frontiers" came very spontaneously - like in only minutes, the same for "The Men of Colour" and "At the Dockside". The remaining poems would have taken an hour or so each to complete and maybe spread out over a day or so. Writing poetry is like going fishing if you ask me - you go through a routine that you love as often as you can and every once and a while you pull in a big one.

S J Garrett

The Novels

A Hyme For A Dyme

Brothers By Numbers

Sweet Anomalies

Beautiful Beautiful

The Waterman

The Some Of Many

The Back Page

The Back Page & Etc.

Home Page

Some New, Some Old

"People Who Write", is just a socio-poetic rant that has a turn-around at the end. "As Close To Love As Love Gets", is all about a really great kiss! "A Message From Anywhere" is a plea for some sanity in the world but not just from anywhere - but from my very own backyard."I Have You" is a popular little number with some but not so much with me but I must say that I can rather vividly remember writing it and you will find some notes concerning all of this via a hyperlink at the bottom of the poem.

"Breathing Easy" is an odd one - it has a bit of an eerie feel to it but it also has a pleasant message - and it's another monologue of course. "A Gentle Morning" is a romantic piece and it reminds of a favourite era - that of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century; I suppose that's late Victorian but that time up to and including the cusp of modernism is my favourite for art.

"The Peace Equation" is what I call an experiment in algebraic poetry and is meant to reach out even further than just to other poets - but also to our more logical friends who are cerebrally more left brained. I would also consider it to be an example of concrete poetry - I can stare at a cool set of words for hours - the shape of a poem has real meaning to me. I think that's telling and the poem was also embedded into the novel "Still The Savages" as graffiti. You can also read notes on what was behind the writing of this guy by using the hyperlink to some notes.

"The Moment It Touches" is a real oldie and I think I'll dig up a few of them - I like their primitivism - back then economy of words and simple nuance was what I focused on. "This is Destiny" is a poem that I needed to write and sometimes - even now - I still need it.

S J Garrett