Arc of the Poet, Part 5: Wake-Up Call

We kept the afterburners on and blasted into 1991, with me clawing my way forward professionally and growing up further alongside my sweetheart. I wrote an original short script for producer/director Bill Waxler, and his plans to produce it brought together a very talented group of production professionals and friends. Entitled “Bumper Crop” that project gained steam through the Spring, and by June 29, we were on location, ready to shoot it on 16mm film. I’ve written about this project in the past, beginning with Feb. 22, 1991: Bumper Crop, Part 1.

Part 2 of that series recounts the unforeseen drama of June 29. Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 4: Spinning Out

From the great poem East Coker written by “American born, English” poet T. S. Eliot:

Home is where one starts from. As we grow older
The world becomes stranger, the pattern more complicated
Of dead and living. Not the intense moment
Isolated, with no before and after,
But a lifetime burning in every moment
And not the lifetime of one man only
But of old stones that cannot be deciphered.

The freedom I enjoyed immediately after earning two bachelors degrees and completing my six-year Air Force Reserve commitment was wonderfully liberating, and my girlfriend Beth and I pressed ahead into our whirlwind adventures. My tiny backyard garage apartment in downtown Orlando became her home, too, over time, as we grew together. Meanwhile, facing our college debts, we both dedicated ourselves to earning paychecks. Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 3: True Love

Thank you very much for your interest in my education and exploits as a poet over the past 20 years. With Arc of the Poet, I’m aiming to share the most interesting highlights and lowlights as briefly, and as colorfully, as possible.

Even before 1990 had officially begun, I recall feeling anxious for it to be over. It truly was an endurance test for me, involving one marathon ordeal after another. I turned 23 that year, with no fanfare, and I took that as a sign of maturity. I also persevered in seizing my military and college experiences with the best of my thoughts and abilities, which I saw as evidence of my growing strength and confidence. By the time it ended, 1990 gave me a great deal in return for all my efforts. Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 2: Tour de Force

Between 1978 and 1989, I went from 12 to 23… from wondering about being a man to being one.

I have a short stack of decent poetic writings from those days, and as you’d expect, they are about things like love, friends and life’s big events, positive and otherwise. I moved each year of high school… from Greenville in Illinois my freshmen year (Scott’s sensational senior one), to Chattanooga, Tennessee, then Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. When her second marriage ended, Mom and I moved to Orlando for what was to be my senior year, and her career phase next. With so much moving, a lot of my writing was about what I believe T.S. Eliot called “melancholy.” As my studies continued, Read more

Arc of the Poet, Part 1: Life Poetry

To be perfectly honest, I’m not sure that I’m capable of summarizing my childhood in just a few lines, but I do want to paint enough of a picture here to be able to show the ways in which poetry factored into my early life, and came to be something I saw as my ticket to success. Here goes.

Like all kids of the late 1960s, I was exposed early and often to Dr. Seuss, and those fantastic rhymes of his really made deep impressions on me. But there were other rhymes my older brother and I were exposed to, which had accompanied my mother’s upbringing in a rural setting in Southern Illinois, at the hands of her Tennessee-born parents. From early ages, we heard this favorite time and again, inspiring our many adventures in the woods, and framing them in our minds.

Out in the forest there’s a great big tree
with a hole in the middle that just fits me
so I climb inside and pretend I’m a bear
and I growl and I grumble and I rumble there. Read more

Bluebirdsongs for Grace and Claire

Back in May, 1998, Beth and I joined most of her Kiefert and Julien families in Tallahassee, Florida, for the wedding of her sister Ann and Chuck Bowling. I married into my wife’s family back in 1992, so I was very much at home with everyone gathered, as we all enjoyed an unforgettable weekend together with Chuck’s family, and their many friends who joined in the fun. The day before their wedding, Ann and Chuck invited us all to join them at one of their favorite places: The Birdsong Nature Center. Located in Thomasville, Georgia, just above the Florida-Georgia border, Birdsong is a 565-acre preserve of wildflower meadows, forests, ponds and swamps. Home to a dazzling array of birds and wildlife, it’s pretty much heaven on Earth. We all learned a lot that day about nature, about Chuck’s father’s ability to fall asleep at the drop of a hat … and a neat program where the center provides essential nesting homes for Bluebirds. So naturally, when Ann and Chuck’s daughter Grace was born, we decided to sponsor a Birdsong Nature Center Bluebird home in her name. And since my mother marked so many special occasions when I was growing up with the added gift of an original poem, I wrote this one for our first niece. Read more

May 9, 2010: Granny Bea Photo Tribute, Ramble #7

I’ve written here before about my “Ramble” creative writing project. On Dec. 30 of 2009, I sat down to write a Ramble entry for my late grandmother Beatrice Ridings, who was widely known to many as Granny Bea, Aunt Bea, or Ms. Ridings. I had two wonderful grandmothers who have now passed on, and luckily for me, Grandma Eileen Darnell, who we called Bam, was also tight with Granny Bea, so on more than one occasion, I was able to enjoy them both simultaneously. At long last, I have published a separate collection for Grandma Bam, and below, I am very proud to share my tribute to Granny Bea. Read more

Urban Lee Ridings and “Who Lives Alone?”

Recently I was going through a folder I’ve held onto over the years, which has some of the poems I wrote the old-fashioned way, with a piece of paper and a pencil or pen, along with some similar keepsakes. Among the other pieces in the collection, my mother is a major contributor. She has always had a great way of giving things that feel special enough to make me want to keep them forever. Read more

June 9, 1984: Dedication, from Mom

Throughout our lives, my brother and I have enjoyed the wealth of blessings that come from having a mother who is extremely nurturing, strong of heart, spirit and mind, and uniquely powerful as a communicator, mentor, friend and survivor. Today is her last day at work, where she is effectively graduating into retirement, and Scott and I are joined by many others in our extended family in feeling extremely proud and joyful, knowing how hard she has worked for such a long time to get to this moment in life, the epitomy of dedication, perseverance and responsibility. To give you a sense of her graceful ability to share touching words which have put our most precious life moments into profound perspective — which is something she’s done consistently throughout our lives — I’m sharing the letter she wrote for me on my high school graduation day, over 25 years ago.

Mom, you are such an inspiration, such a wonderful friend and guide. You are a blessing, in every sense of the word, and as you move into phase-next of your life, we wish you all the things you have wished for us, in spades. Enjoy!

January 17, 2008: Ramble #17

The ‘Bumper Crop’ series has at least one more entry, but requires a bit more work on my part before I can post the rest of the story. In the meantime, I wanted to share something from a more recent work. After we moved to the Blue Ridge Mountains almost exactly seven years ago, I found my creative writing energies more or less depleted. Soon, being a father added a new dimension to my life, and the one creative project that stayed on my agenda was to write an epic poem for Amelia, detailing the first day of her life from my perspective. That took over a year, and eventually it may find its way on here. After finishing that, in the moments when life and work settled down, I began to wonder what should come next. The answer found me in the form of a new project I conceived, and dubbed “Ramble.” Read more