Hello Everyone!

I’m excited to participate in this year’s Poetry Marathon. I’m a first timer and am looking to finish a half marathon this time around.

I’m 34, married, and have two young sons. I live in Warrensburg, Missouri USA on a small farm, though I lived in Kansas City until I was 27. I am a high school English teacher and a middle school wrestling coach. I enjoy studying chess, practicing martial arts, and writing poetry. I live my life heavily influenced my samurai ethos. I believe in the mutual cultivation of mind, body, and spirit/heart as a way to develop the complete individual. A scholar, a warrior, an artist. Through these paths all beauty is revealed. I like to live close to the earth, simply, and in service to others.

Poetry was the first form of writing I fell in love with, and is still my choice format. I lean heavy on free verse and believe the best poems come from raw, spontaneous purging. I cannot prepare you for what you may read in my poetry. While I do go back through and edit what I have written, I try to keep what I put on the page as unfiltered as what passes through my mind daily. I’m not promising any literary gems, or even that much talent, just random, poetic, ramblings that are a complicated way of saying very little. The works I create during the marathon may or may not inspire introspection in others. No guarantees. If anything, my poems will serve as a window for others to peer into my very probable insanity. I think like this, and I have a desire to write like this, so I am. I feel the Marathon will suit my style of poetry very well. Looking forward to what surfaces throughout this creative endeavor.

Best wishes to all.