An Emerging New Southern Voice

An Emerging New Southern Voice

This is an article from August 2013 written by a dear friend and excellent publicist, Dave Altman. The Pickens County Progress was gracious enough to do a follow-up piece on me, a year after my book’s release, The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics. Pickens County has been a peaceful home to me since my mother, little brother, and I moved here in the mid 1980’s.

pickens-county-progress-article
Click Here to Read the Full Article

After graduating from Shorter College in 1999, I returned to Pickens to work a decade split between juvenile probation and DFCS. A great deal of my poetry was written during this time, mostly captured in Whirling Metaphysics (all of my epic, The Gateman’s Hymn of Ignoracium) with a few pieces seen in the mountain-themed poetry of The Draw of Broken Eyes.

In this article, my issues with Bipolar Disorder and related substance abuse are discussed with direct honesty. I make apologies for nothing. I neither brag about anything. This is simply a snapshot of my life and some background on the metaphors I use in both my books. The Draw of Broken Eyes & Whirling Metaphysics has gone farther and done more for me personally than I ever thought possible. The attention has not given me a self-righteous cloak of “The Brooding Poet”, nor made me afraid to pen my next book.

Writing has become a real form of therapy. You see, in the past, this time of year (early fall into winter) is where the doldrums of a haggard self usually begin to tear my soul into The Nothing. This year, due to the proper medication, only positive influences and people allowed into my inner circle, as well as a touch of Love have changed that. Today I write more with greater vigor and clarity than ever before in my life.

My next book is entitled Athena Departs. In it I see myself as the man I’m becoming after three years of manual labor, now teaching, freelance writing, and helping those with honor and incredible gifts of expression get a leg up in the tight-lipped world of Art. There is karma to good writing, not a debt to be paid. It is a pleasure greater than anything I’ve achieved on my own, playing a small part in kindred spirits taking flight. It’s something I hope to do more of with The Southern Collective Experience.

Here’s to genuine Art and great friends.

Art is a divine life. It is
to dance. It is to hear God.

“The Fifth Movement”
Whirling Metaphysics

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