John Allison

To be honest, and this is terrible to admit, I hardly read any teen mystery books at all.

Poetry for me is a result of lyrical meditation, pre-verbal in origin, and much of the craft has to do with finding a contemporary diction that embodies, at times subverts but never betrays that pre-verbal lyrical source: the presence of song before it is sung.

In dividing the light, things are seen. And we notice ourselves.

It is almost as thoughsomething else is breathingquite close by, invisibly.The mystery of the names_Albizzia. Gleditsia.Aucuba japonica. AndI am listening, seeing. Seeing,like someone twice alive.