Greeting fellow word-wranglers. Allow me to introduce myself. I am a novelist by trade, a full-time father and grandfather, and a poet at heart. I am an award-winning contributing member of the Society of Classical Poets, and love reading poetry as well as writing it.

As a poet, I am very much old-school. I don’t do much free-verse, preferring the discipline and lyrical quality of structured, metered forms. My heroes are Frost, Thomas, Poe and Whitman – although my style is closer to Poe’s than anyone else’s.

As a metered verse poet, I love to explore the classical forms. From villanelles to rondeau redoubles, from coronas and crowns of sonnets to sestinas, from terza rimas to pantoums, I love writing and stretching the limits of metered rhyme.

I tend to write a lot of iambic poetry, and like the Bard, I usually end up in pentameter (the length and pattern appeals to my inner minstrel) — but trochaic or even anapestic feet can also be a lot of fun.

I enjoy writing across all genres, and often challenge myself to do poetry in different ways. One of my favorite genre-poems tells a western Gunslinger’s story in a thirty-nine line sestina – and I love to write Gothic horror.

Since the day I read E.A.P.’s The Raven as a child, the narrative tale in metered form has been my greatest thrill. My first ever published poem was done as a tribute to this epic story, and was written in catalectic trochaic octameter, using the Raven’s back-beat cadence as it’s driving heartbeat.

I hope to get to meet some of you who enjoy classic poetry as much as I do, and am looking forward to the marathon.