about these poems
Years ago as I began to constrain my early free verse poetry, I was introduced to the Acrostic. I had already found by constraining lines to a fixed meter an ability to broaden a poem’s impact, to allow for the unspoken to sit with the spoken. An Acrostic is a poem in which the first letter of each line spells out a word, name or message. I saw the Acrostic form as just another constraint to provide a center around which my poems focus. Given the general short number of letters in people’s names, some Acrostic poems provide a pregnant density much like Haiku. When names are longer, one can choose a classic form such as the sonnet.
All of these poems emanate from my connection with people, connections which are dear and sometimes remotely admiring. Even poems inspired by a visit to an historic location are motivated by an imagined bond with the individuals associated to that place. Each personal acrostic in this collection is a conversation with the individuals named.
Some of these personal acrostics are written in rhyming stanzas. As the person is at the focus of the poem, I choose to break the stanzas of the poem according to the name, rather than the rhyme scheme.
