etc.: a book of poetry about humor, whimsy … and whatever the hell else popped into my head at the time.

etc.: a book of poetry about humor, whimsy … and whatever the hell else popped into my head at the time.

Poets write poems about the glorious as well as the inglorious, the monumental and the trivial, the humorous and the tragic, the significant as well as the insignificant – and by writing about them, give them a certain momentous significance. From the eternal question asked by Prince Hamlet in Shakespeare’s most famous tragedy, “To be, or not to be?” to Ogden Nash’s “Adam had ’em,” a poem shorter than its title, “Dissertation on Fleas,” poetry has continued to spark the heart as well as sing to the soul. This book of poetry contains poems that comment on, and poke fun at, all things great and small, tracing the journey of a bug across the bathroom floor as well as chronicle the death of innocence and the innocent. Some are written in free verse – others, in metered verse. Some rhyme. Many don’t. Some contain mythical beasts. Some, bestial behavior. And some, for good or ill, attempt to inform, awaken, and enlighten.