An Amateur's Guide to the Invisible World

Though it took patience, perseverance, and an expanse of years to finally do right by it, I just finished editing the revised edition of a poetry collection entitled An Amateur's Guide to the Invisible World. 

Guidance in perceiving things invisible to others has always been part of a poet's vocation. This responsibility could make you crazy or wise, and even getting it right is no guarantee of popular success.

While prior to the invention of the printing press--and thousands of years before memory became stored in silicon chips--it was also a Bard's responsibility to serve as a custodian of a culture's history, including its legends, and its storehouse of myths. Sometimes these inherited soul stories--and how they'd been interpreted--needed to be called into question. Here, the Bard's job was to serve as a cultural critic. 

Or sometimes a myth's basic structure could still prove useful if formerly missing nuances were recognized that assisted in helping the myth be employed to better meet cultural challenges currently being faced.

These tasks required the skill of metaphorical thinking--and poets have always been the expert witnesses of the right side of the brain. Plus, it takes an insightful attunement to one's culture to select the right myths (or poems) for the nature of the time, while being faithful to what is timeless and universal.

Anyhow, though all Bards are poets. not all poets are Bards. And in the spirit of the Bardic tradition, and the above responsibilities, I offer the first poem appearing in An Amateur's Guide to the Invisible World. It begins with a line from Genesis. And the poem is entitled "Dominion."