Eleven Sundry Flowers

The book presents a group of love poems written in the course of eleven days and is richly illuminated/illustrated with the poems appearing as insets surrounded by artwork. The poems were written as courtship offerings for the woman the author eventually married. Its genesis is described thus by the author: "In March 2003, three surprising events serendipitously converged, inspiring me to write the poetic work you're about to read (and, I hope, enjoy). First, and most importantly, my longtime friendship with Nancy Aceves (now my wife) had evolved into a romantic relationship. After years of mishaps, bad timing and near misses, we were finally boyfriend and girlfriend - and I could not have been happier. Second, I had just read Astrophil and Stella by Philip Sidney (which I really enjoyed and which I would reference heavily in this work), and was continuing, on my own, my studies of the other master poets' work I'd enjoyed most in school. Thirdly, after working full-time nonstop since I was about 14 or 15 years old, I finally worked for the kind of miracle employer who offered employees two weeks of paid vacation. I was 30 years old at the time, so I hadn't had vacation time in 15 years - and certainly not paid vacation time. Incidentally, the day before I would begin writing this work, a combined force of troops from the U.S., the U.K., and other countries, would invade Iraq, initiating our war in the Middle East with a severe and brutal combat campaign the media perfectly dubbed "Shock and Awe" because of the major devastation we'd all witness on live TV for the next 21 days. Now, just two years after the attacks on 9-11, this was a confusing, conflicted, and fearful time to be alive, to be in love, and to be a poet trying to create something both spontaneous and beautiful during an incredible and, for me, unprecedented 11 days of paid time off.