Ebook
New Poems, this author's third and most recent work, starts by taking you along on a month full of the daily activities, adventures, difficulties, and observations arising directly from hard country living ("December"), one poem for each day, just for openers. "Ravens," the next series of sixteen poems, takes you deeply into a metaphysical world of fascinating mythical and religious associations and meanings of ravens in cultural history and scripture around the world. This is followed by "The Planets," a beautiful little collection of seven poems, with each planet addressed individually and sensitively through its classical themes.
That much would normally more than fill other contemporary books of poetry, but this author has much more here. Although the author was thirteen years old when Theodore Roethke passed away, "In Respect of Theodore Roethke" presents nine poems which, on their own, probe some of the dark and difficult places of existence where Roethke struggled. Finally, "Various" gives us ten poems that are not aligned topically and that give us the poet's informality and humor.
Throughout all the reader will encounter here, they will find a mastery of sound and structure, strength and grace, sending, ultimately, a plea of love into the world.
Steven P. Klepeis grew up in upstate New York, holds an MAT from The State University of New York, New Paltz, New York (1982), and taught in various business schools from 1984 to 1989, but pursued a career in risk management. He worked for many years in both the private and public sectors, and eventually he followed a job to New Mexico in 2016. He started writing poetry seriously in the early 1970s and has published Brooklyn and After and Poems 1973–1987 (2021) and Eighty-One Plus One (2022). He wrote this current volume from 2021 to 2022, and he has written a fourth book, El Rio, which is pending publication. He is currently working on a fifth book, entitled Love, and a book-length lyric narrative of the New Mexico 1680 Pueblo Revolt, which he expects to complete in 2024.