Let me proclaim the colours
 In my own way,
 Without wounds,
 Without scars,
 And with only the most excusable errors.

- Goethe -

This collection of twenty-three sonnets, each based on a different colour of the spectrum, was first conceived in 1995.  I was at Dalhousie University at the time, working on a Master’s of Philosophy, still intoxicated by the imagery and metaphor of the French symbolist poets I had studied as an undergraduate. 

Nestled on a bluff overlooking Crystal Crecent beach south of Halifax, with paper, pen, and a bottle of Irish whiskey (in my youth, I had the not uncommon misconception that, to be truly inspired, one must have a drink in hand), gazing across the slate sea toward the French coast, detecting Stéphane Mallarmé’s “white foam” in the breakers as they curled out of the cerulean horizon and crashed into the pebbled shore, I started writing.    

The poems in their first draft are raw and graceless, ragged with exuberance.       

Now, fifteen years later, with a more seasoned, less ecstatic approach, I’m revisiting the sonnets, reshaping  and polishing.  They will contain the same essence but will, I hope, reveal more luster. 

I intend to release them one by one on this website as I complete the revisions.  My fellow traveler, Vincent Andrews (once, when we were young, Dean Moriarty to my imagined Sal Paradise), has agreed to produce accompanying artworks for each sonnet. 

The first of the revised poems, Orange, is posted.  Twenty-two more to go.  One day, perhaps, when they are all “finished”, I will assemble them with the artworks into a proper book. 

I’m interested in any and all feedback.  All reasonable, polite comments will be posted.  I’m particularly interested to know how readers interpret these poems.  I’ve been told they are diffuse, inaccessible, and difficult to parse.

Is that true?  Do you agree?