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Open Your Eyes: & Other Poems
Paperback
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ISBN13: 9798195284619
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 2 2026
Pages: 86
Weight: 0.25
Height: 0.22 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
Publisher: Independently Published
Published: May 2 2026
Pages: 86
Weight: 0.25
Height: 0.22 Width: 6.00 Depth: 9.00
Language: English
A Note from the Author
The poems collected here were written during my high school and
college years, between 1994 and 1995. Most were composed for Dr.
Perel's English course at the University of Michigan-Flint, where I first
began to take seriously the idea that I had something to say worth
The poems collected here were written during my high school and
college years, between 1994 and 1995. Most were composed for Dr.
Perel's English course at the University of Michigan-Flint, where I first
began to take seriously the idea that I had something to say worth
setting down on the page.
Reading these poems again, decades later, I am struck by how
earnestly the young man who wrote them was searching - for love, for
meaning, for a way to make sense of grief and faith and the noise of the
world. The voice is unfinished. The grammar wanders. The metaphors
sometimes overreach. I have left almost all of that alone, correcting
only the most obvious typographical errors so the poems read clearly
without losing the texture of the writer I was at the time.
Several poems exist in two versions - an earlier draft and a later,
more polished revision. Both are included here. Watching a poem move
from its first attempt to its final form is, for me, the most honest record
of what learning to write actually looks like.
The book opens with a poem I did not write. Open Your Eyes, by
Henry W. Dorley, Sr., was given to me - or perhaps written alongside
me - during this same period. I cannot say with certainty whether Mr.
Dorley was a fellow student, a mentor, or a name I wrote under when I
needed a different voice. I include the poem here exactly as I have
always known it, and I dedicate this collection in part to whoever Henry
W. Dorley, Sr. was, or is, or might yet have been.
Reading these poems again, decades later, I am struck by how
earnestly the young man who wrote them was searching - for love, for
meaning, for a way to make sense of grief and faith and the noise of the
world. The voice is unfinished. The grammar wanders. The metaphors
sometimes overreach. I have left almost all of that alone, correcting
only the most obvious typographical errors so the poems read clearly
without losing the texture of the writer I was at the time.
Several poems exist in two versions - an earlier draft and a later,
more polished revision. Both are included here. Watching a poem move
from its first attempt to its final form is, for me, the most honest record
of what learning to write actually looks like.
The book opens with a poem I did not write. Open Your Eyes, by
Henry W. Dorley, Sr., was given to me - or perhaps written alongside
me - during this same period. I cannot say with certainty whether Mr.
Dorley was a fellow student, a mentor, or a name I wrote under when I
needed a different voice. I include the poem here exactly as I have
always known it, and I dedicate this collection in part to whoever Henry
W. Dorley, Sr. was, or is, or might yet have been.
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