"A Stranger in the Garden"

My book of poetry written while I was in Mexico has been seen by The Toronto Book club and has returned some very nice reviews on Goodreads. I have to say the reviews were definitely heart felt, leaving me a bit humbled by their effusive words of praise. It is not often that poetry brings such good feelings from readers.

It was this book, which has been in publication for many years, that I decided to have the verses translated into Spanish, which I accomplished using DeepL AI. I sent samples of the translations to a friend with a family member who is a native speaker of Spanish, for his opinion on the efficacy of the translation. I was told that DeepL did a very good job of translating the English version. I was inspired by one of the books of poetry I have in my library, Pablo Neruda, a Chilean poetry, who's book of poetry "The Captain's Verses" had his verses in Spanish on one side and the English translation across from it. It was enjoyable reading both sides, helping immensely in my crappy Spanish. I speak Spanish like a four year old.

As has been the case since I began penning lines of poetry in 1969, I find that about every twenty years I find myself with my blank book in hand, in which I pen the lines of poetry, with a pen, when the urges to pen more lines becomes irresistible to me. I have once again begun including the finished poems into a book, and am about halfway through the project. Each time I pick up the poetry pen the lines come out differently from that last time. I suppose that means I continue to change over time, and my words describing the world also change. I suppose that is a positive.

I would like to note that the image on the front cover is from a painting of my late wife. It is of Calle Zaragoza, the street where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton stayed in an apartment on either side of the street. There is a bridge across the road, second floor, where they could 'meet' surreptitiously, as that was in the f50's when they were filming "Night of the Iguana". Such meetings, at night, unchaperoned was a definite no-no. My wife left out the bridge in this painting. As the true painter, my wife was never happy with the painting, seeing "faults". This is one of my favorite paintings she did.