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    Arc of the Poet, Part 10: Good Poetry

    Arc of the Poet Part 1: Life Poetry Part 2: Tour de Force Part 3: True Love Part 4: Spinning Out Part 5: Wake-Up Call Part 6: Serious Dreams Part 7: Home Stretch Part 8: Feedback Part 9: Dear Departures Part 10: Good Poetry Part 11: Rewrites Part 12: Resistance Part 13: Fame and Fortune Part 14: Ramblings Part 15: Being I may never become famous as a result of a poem I’ve written. I reluctantly accepted that probability some time ago, but only after mounting great, concentrated efforts designed to place my poetry within well respected literary publications… most…

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    Arc of the Poet, Part 7: Home Stretch

    Arc of the Poet Part 1: Life Poetry Part 2: Tour de Force Part 3: True Love Part 4: Spinning Out Part 5: Wake-Up Call Part 6: Serious Dreams Part 7: Home Stretch Part 8: Feedback Part 9: Dear Departures Part 10: Good Poetry Part 11: Rewrites Part 12: Resistance Part 13: Fame and Fortune Part 14: Ramblings Part 15: Being Nearly a year after our spectacular wedding, May of 1993 found me, Beth and pretty much everyone else in our family continuously thinking about my brother, his daily perseverance in recovering from his July ’91 diving accident, and his…

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    Arc of the Poet, Part 5: Wake-Up Call

    Arc of the Poet Part 1: Life Poetry Part 2: Tour de Force Part 3: True Love Part 4: Spinning Out Part 5: Wake-Up Call Part 6: Serious Dreams Part 7: Home Stretch Part 8: Feedback Part 9: Dear Departures Part 10: Good Poetry Part 11: Rewrites Part 12: Resistance Part 13: Fame and Fortune Part 14: Ramblings Part 15: Being We kept the afterburners on and blasted into 1991, with me clawing my way forward professionally and growing up further alongside my sweetheart. I wrote an original short script for producer/director Bill Waxler, and his plans to produce it…

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    Arc of the Poet, Part 4: Spinning Out

    Arc of the Poet Part 1: Life Poetry Part 2: Tour de Force Part 3: True Love Part 4: Spinning Out Part 5: Wake-Up Call Part 6: Serious Dreams Part 7: Home Stretch Part 8: Feedback Part 9: Dear Departures Part 10: Good Poetry Part 11: Rewrites Part 12: Resistance Part 13: Fame and Fortune Part 14: Ramblings Part 15: Being From the great poem East Coker written by “American born, English” poet T.S. Eliot: Home is where one starts from. As we grow older The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated Of dead and living. Not the intense…

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    Arc of the Poet, Part 2: Tour de Force

    Arc of the Poet Part 1: Life Poetry Part 2: Tour de Force Part 3: True Love Part 4: Spinning Out Part 5: Wake-Up Call Part 6: Serious Dreams Part 7: Home Stretch Part 8: Feedback Part 9: Dear Departures Part 10: Good Poetry Part 11: Rewrites Part 12: Resistance Part 13: Fame and Fortune Part 14: Ramblings Part 15: Being Between 1978 and 1989, I went from 12 to 23 … from wondering about being a man to being one. I have a short stack of decent poetic writings from those days, and as you’d expect, they are about…

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    Bluebirdsongs for Grace and Claire

    Back in May, 1998, Beth and I joined most of her Kiefert and Julien families in Tallahassee, Florida, for the wedding of her sister Ann and Chuck Bowling. I married into my wife’s family back in 1992, so I was very much at home with everyone gathered, as we all enjoyed an unforgettable weekend together with Chuck’s family, and their many friends who joined in the fun. The day before their wedding, Ann and Chuck invited us all to join them at one of their favorite places: The Birdsong Nature Center. Located in Thomasville, Georgia, just above the Florida-Georgia border,…

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    May 9, 2010: Granny Bea Photo Tribute, Ramble #7

    I’ve written here before about my “Ramble” creative writing project. On Dec. 30 of 2009, I sat down to write a Ramble entry for my late grandmother Beatrice Ridings, who was widely known to many as Granny Bea, Aunt Bea, or Ms. Ridings. I had two wonderful grandmothers who have now passed on, and luckily for me, Grandma Eileen Darnell, who we called Bam, was also tight with Granny Bea, so on more than one occasion, I was able to enjoy them both simultaneously. At long last, I have published a separate collection for Grandma Bam, and below, I am…

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    Urban Lee Ridings and “Who Lives Alone?”

    Recently I was going through a folder I’ve held onto over the years, which has some of the poems I wrote the old-fashioned way, with a piece of paper and a pencil or pen, along with some similar keepsakes. Among the other pieces in the collection, my mother is a major contributor. She has always had a great way of giving things that feel special enough to make me want to keep them forever.