(loosely fitted into arbitrary categories)
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Multi-Voiced Poems
(To be performed aloud by two people. May require practice to stay together)
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Polar Souls
(Contrasting two views of life: depression and happiness, each existing "just because," without any reason or excuse)
We Are
(Tries to see both a soldier and a peacemaker as the human beings they are)
Conversation with a Young Poet
(Poking fun at teenage angst poetry)
Night Sailing
(A fictitious sailboat ride at night in a fictitious place. Playing with the sound of words)
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Transcendental / Ecstatic Poems
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Death March
(A Rumi-esque poem about living an ecstatic life)
the Puzzle
(Another Rumi-inspired poem. Musings on self-reflection and the limits of logic)
Cliff View
(About the last moments of a man's life. Even a doomed life is worth living)
the Ever-Now
(On the spiritual ideal of living in the eternal moment of the present)
Unborn
(About the idea that there are higher realities or states of consciousness which we can scarcely imagine)
Am I Awake?
(An illustration of the seven states of consciousness described by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi)
in Praise of the Soul
(I still can't decide if it's flippant or serious. You decide)
the CRODEN Haiku
(Fulfills almost every poetry category I know - other than the strict forms)
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Nature / Naturalistic
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the Storm
(Based on an impressionist painting. I wrote it in seventh grade. My first published poem.)
Driftwood
(A sonnet about an encounter between a tree and the ocean)
to a Clarinet Reed
(Clarinets use reeds - flat pieces of bamboo-like stuff - to make the sound. Reeds are very fickle, changing with the weather and probably the phases of the moon. They drive me crazy)
Two Men
(Sentimental prose poem vignette based on a painting of two men in a bar)
Haiku
(Several haiku written during a poetry class. We made a trip to a cafe to write these)
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Love Poems
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the Early Days
(Long, sentimental Valentine's Day poem to Lauren)
To Lauren, 1:11 AM / December Sixteen, 2001
(A love sonnet about sometimes being out of sync and needing distance)
Stonekiss
(About the need for unconditional love, comfort, and stability)
Measuring-Blocks and Re-Measuring
(The first part was to console Ania to the fact that I could not be more than a friend. The second part was when Lauren and I broke up and I admitted that I had been wrong, that I had always loved Ania. This was not why Lauren and I split, though. I should really write a third part, titled "To Hell With the Whole Love Thing," but I've moved on again, always the optimist. Maybe I should just stop writing love poems to people with whom it's not going to work out. Ah, the soap opera that is my life...)
Slumber Town
(Based on a walk that Ania and I took during our poetry class)
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Responses to Literature
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a Response to Othello
(Calls on Othello to make a better choice in order to avert tragedy)
Giltspeare Luckson's Tragic Tale
(A tale, in verse, of a warrior long before Beowulf, commenting on our unheroic culture)
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Strict Form, Verse, and Other Gimmicks
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Caged Nonsense
(I don't understand it. Neither will you. And no, I wasn't on drugs or anything. I just sat on the keyboard and then tried to make a little sense out of the result)
the Void
(On the artist's need for contrast and instability to keep things fresh)
Lines
(Came from looking at a religious carving and wondering about the tree that was killed for it)
Advice
(About the futility of advice, how everyone must decide alone in the end)
A Tense Future
(I wrote this in 10th grade. About how disasters happen, life is scary, but the best thing is not to worry, just be as happy as you can.)
Poetic Form Studies
(Several quirky short poems using interesting forms or techniques)
Some Things Seem Much Deeper Than They Are
(Such as this poem. It seems laden with metaphor, but even I don't know)
Jazz Student
(My first, and probably last, sestina. Sestinas' form requirements make sonnets look like nursery rhymes)
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Ars Poetica
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Perfection
(A 13-line "sonnet" on the impossibility of a perfect world)
Why I Write Poetry
(An ars poetica)
Arse [sic] Poetica
(A lame ars poetica that I wrote long ago, but not long enough to excuse it. Sort of funny though)
His History Story
(On the limitations of words and memory, of being understood. No, I don't really think people will analyze me this much!)
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All writing on this site is the original work of
Albert Andreas Stimson and may not be
duplicated without permission.