January 25, 1988: Alexander Salamander

When I wrote the following poem nearly 24 years ago, I had never even seen a salamander. Still, it instantly became one of my favorites, so you can imagine how excited I was to discover salamanders in our back yard when we moved to North Carolina back in 2001. Both Amelia and Riley have grown up catching and loving them, too. Enjoy!

Alexander Salamander

by Roger Darnell

sal•a•man•der n. a mythological reptile resembling the lizard, that was said to live in fire.

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Sep. 28, 2011: Grandma’s laugh

Growing up, I had two wonderful grandmothers: Beatrice Travis-Ridings or “Granny Bea,” who passed away just a few months before Amelia was born in 2001… and Eileen Darnell-Houser or “Grandma Bam,” who left us in 2009. Back in 2010, I wrote about Granny Bea, and this post on Grandma Bam is long overdue.

My life has been keeping me very busy lately. Outside of my daily activities focused on taking excellent care of my family and clients, free time has been extremely scarce. This week, my father celebrated his 70th birthday — and with my stepmom, their 36th wedding anniversary — while my big bro arrived at birthday number 48. As I thought about things I could do in their honor, I remembered the video interview I did with Grandma Bam back in 2004, and decided to share some of its contents with them and our other friends and familymembers on Facebook. Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 14: Ramblings

More than ten years ago, after relocating to the Blue Ridge Mountains and making final preparations for parenthood (we actally studied The Bradley Method), Beth and I launched into this current phase of our love story. Experiencing life’s joys and sorrows together over the next couple of years, while diligently tending to my business and supporting personal projects for many members of the family, I wondered what was to come for the creative writer. In 2002, I made up an answer, in the form of a new writing project named Ramble. In it, I aimed to address my personal challenges, write simply and seek new focus. From the beginning, these words have appeared at the top: “This document will hopefully grow in the weeks ahead to represent a journey: the rediscovery of the writer inside a person caught up in his life as businessman, husband and parent.”

Going mostly on instinct, I limited each line to 38 characters, wrote the first entry 73 lines long, and planned to make each subsequent verse one line shorter. If all went as hoped, I figured the final line would be something significant, even if most of the others might be forgettable.

Leaping ahead to the present, Ramble has been somewhat miraculous to me; as you might expect, it changed dramatically over time… and so have I. For the first, longest verses, I vented in detail about momentous developments, including some of the bigger political and global issues of those days. Progressively, I grew more and more daunted in facing the need to communicate things of real importance concisely. For anyone arriving at a crossroads in life with ability and time to write, I encourage a similar writing challenge. If you don’t have years and years to devote, begin with a five-line poem, then count down four, three, two and one: In my experience, it’s a productive approach at focusing oneself. Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 13: Fame and Fortune

A good number of great people have expressed at least some appreciation for my writing over the years. Since long ago, many believers have expressed confidence in these abilities, and I feel that their belief is essential to who I am. When I think about what’s to come for me as a writer and artist, I’m inspired by the idea of honoring each of those individuals, and all others interested in my words. Gratefully, I’ll carry on.

In the summer of 1995, I joined the production crew of the primetime NBC television series “seaQuest” at Universal Studios Florida, and began an adventure I’ll never forget, helping produce 13 episodes with a Who’s Who of spectacular production and entertainment industry talents. We were in Orlando, making headlines in all the top national trades well before the first episode of “SeaQuest 2032″ hit the airwaves featuring Michael Ironside, Roy Scheider, Michael York and scores of other hot and rising Hollywood stars.

I earned my job from the prolific television producer and director Steve Beers, by committing to handling script distribution and revisions for all the producers and writers, just as I’d done for him and the other producers on “Fortune Hunter” the previous year. That show for Fox had made a big splash and also involved serious heavy hitters, but seaQuest was a phenomenon… a massive franchise for NBC, Amblin Television, Universal Television and all the other industry all-stars involved. Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 11: Rewrites

Thank you very much for your interest in this thread, and my ongoing adventures as a poet. This project revisits the experiences of the past 20 years for posterity, your entertainment and hopefully some enlightenment as well. This is part 11, and number 15 is the last entry I have outlined. In finishing the series up over the next several weeks, I have a few more stories I hope you’ll enjoy.

The following lines are from An Essay on Man published by Alexander Pope in 1734.

All Nature is but Art, unknown to thee;
All chance, direction, which thou canst not see;
All discord, harmony not understood;
All partial evil, universal good:
And, spite of pride in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.

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Arc of the Poet, Part 10: Good Poetry

I may never become famous as a result of a poem I’ve written. I reluctantly accepted that probability some time ago, but only after mounting great, concentrated efforts designed to place my poetry within well respected literary publications… most of which failed.

I’ve always been a sincere fan of my mother Lila Darnell’s direct, powerful and stylized creative writing. Through my high school and college educations, exchanges with many other colorful and smart friends and family members, and lifelong exposure to magazines, radio and cable TV broadcasts, I developed a pretty strong sense for good poetry, and where that odd form of writing fits into the world. In my early 20s, I was introduced to the works of Charles Bukowski, who appeared to me as a 360-degree representation of the life of a successful poet… and who wrote books I loved instantly, due to them being so human, approachable, funny, well written and good. Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 9: Dear Departures

In the summer of 1993, I was very proud to be the husband of Beth Darnell, a homeowner in downtown Orlando, and a genuine communications industry professional making some headway as a writer, producer and photojournalist. My campaign efforts pitching my original creative entries into literary publications produced no other significant results, until one day a poem came back with this kind note (click for full-size) attached.

I could have wept. Here’s the poem it was attached to. Read more

April 2011 Photo Set

Photos from a spectacular April.

Arc of the Poet, Part 8: Feedback

Even before I had done any real research or taken my first steps into the legitimate literary world, the intellect, attitudes and ideas I gained through my parents and early life experiences gave me an expansive sense of entitlement. A specific delusion I suffered from was believing that the first time my work was read by any sound judge of a literary competition, my name would be affixed to the prize and I’d be on my way to fame. By the midway point of 1993, however, my steady outreach to editors covering poetry and short fiction had only resulted in a growing collection of rejection slips. Most of them were just generic slips of paper, photocopied and stuck into the required SASE (self-addressed stamped envelope) without a second’s thought… but others were from manuscript competitions where I had little choice but to accept that my work had actually been read and deemed unworthy. Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 7: Home Stretch

Nearly a year after our spectacular wedding, May of 1993 found me, Beth and pretty much everyone else in our family continuously thinking about my brother, his daily perseverance in recovering from his July ’91 diving accident, and his successful return to a more normal lifestyle. By then, he and his girlfriend had their own place, on my dad and step-mom’s farm and within earshot of their home. From every angle, Scott was making us all very proud, and showing the kind of resounding inner strength we all hope to have when faced with unimaginable adversity.

At one point right after the accident, my mom wondered aloud if we would ever be happy again. Illinois has always provided a powerful attraction for me around my birthday in May, and I was especially thankful while driving there on May 6, 1993, that I was feeling real joy. You can find a poem I wrote back in 1988 about those annual treks to my native homeland here. Read more