Poetry Readers Challenge discussion

To all of my poetry compatriots!

I wanted to share with each of you the news that a book I spent a decade writing, and years more in the editing, has recently been published. It is a narrative poem titled The Boundary Stone, and within is a hushed, spare, apocalyptic yarn whose narrator, no longer of flesh, nevertheless sets out in wondrous search for his beloved. His wanderings take him through ashfall and deserts torched to glass, where soon he finds himself at an enormous opening in the earth and promptly tosses himself in. From there the journey is largely subterranean and utterly solitary, save for the spectral presence of his heart's aim. And the growing presence of light.

That is an all-too brief and incomplete summary, but there is the gist. Through the years the larger narrative grew to around 300 poems, yet The Boundary Stone in its final state is now around 70 poems -- a distillation that makes the entire narrative rather compact, if not compressed, though I've done my best to make the language and imagery as open and expansive (and engaging!) as possible. Perhaps I've succeeded; perhaps no. I would love for each of you to give it a read and tell me what you think.

Knowing that you will be reading something that had otherwise been so unfathomably internal and, until recently, unintelligible, brings me great pleasure; all-the-more so in the irony that for the majority of these writings I had intended no reader whatsoever. Those closest to me, however, strongly sided with the poem and urged me to set it sail in the world, and to my surprise it effortlessly left harbor.

Let the winds take it where they may, and with them I hope it arrives to you under sparkling, cloudless skies! To that end, it is my sincerest wish that each of you are likewise sailing on the smoothest and richest of waters, and are altogether well.

Much love,
Christopher

http://www.csfpublishing.com/literatu...

http://www.amazon.com/Boundary-Stone-...

Congrats on publishing. Thanks for letting us know. We did have one member who was reading long narrative works; however, he unexpectedly exited goodreads. Maybe there are other epic lovers among your ranks who will give it a try.

Thank you Jen!