Overview

Contemporary poetry is dominated by an adherence to the poetics of Indeterminacy, in which tuneless chaos prevails over music and meaning. In their determination to subvert the traditional conventions of poetry, contemporary poets dismiss, in their practice, all the time-honored devices that make poetry, such as, for example, rhythm and rhyme, symbol and song. That is to say, they dismiss Auden's famous formulation that poetry is "memorable speech"--a unique and compelling combination of sound and sense. Rather than joining my peers in their nihilistic revels, my intention, on the contrary, is to employ the traditional practices of poetry to achieve Auden's ideal. Taking that ideal as my own; that is, taking the practice of such great modernists as Dickinson, Robinson, Yeats, Rilke, Pound, Eliot, Cavafy, Stevens, Hart Crane, and Auden, I seek--against the indeterminacy that defines contemporary poetic practice--to make poems memorable for their music and meaning, their sound and sense. Thus, whether attempting a lyrical love poem or a poignant memoir of my growing up in Philly's Little Italy, my intention is to create a dramatic poetry that is to be spoken as well as read, heard as well as seen. Therefore, my poetry stands as a direct challenge to the nihilistic conception of poetry that rules the contemporary literary landscape.