Voyages

Voyages by Eric R. Pedersen is a collection of poetry spanning 37 years of writing, a poetic odyssey including "Complex Christmas" that laments his first Christmas without his sons, to the serenity of later canoeing under a meteor shower with one of them in "Between Trout Lake and the Milky Way," to the reverie of "Paddling Beneath the Supermoon" alone on his lake in North Carolina, to "Gravedigger" in which he ponders his own mortality. Voyages navigates the murky waters of deep emotion and self-reflection - a journey of adventure, loss, regret, and renewal. The collection also includes poems of critical thought, imagination, and even hilarity. Rich in language, metaphor, imagery and perceptive use of subtleties, the poems are arranged in five chapters: Nature, Love, Tribulations, Humor, and Death.

About the Author

Eric R. Pedersen is a retired English professor who is a published poet and author of a textbook, Challenging Composition. Pedersen taught creative writing at Butler County Community College (PA) for thirty years and advised the BC3 Writers' Club and FACETS, the College's award-winning arts and literary magazine. A member of the Thoreau Society and Hemingway Society, he is an avid canoeist, fisherman, hiker and traveler. Pedersen lives on a lake near Hillsborough, NC and is a proud and dedicated father and grandfather.

Excerpt

Squash Blossom Necklace

The doctor blew dyes into you
To open the maze
But it was that Navajo necklace -
The squash blossoms'
Silver flared funnels
That beckoned my seed,
Your eyes blazing blue green
Like those turquoise stones
As the squash blossoms
Circled your neck,
Danced down each side
To its crescent center
Whose luminous arcs flashed
Past brown mounds,
Down to your fluted blossom
Glinted off burnished beads
And streamed up to a loan stone,
Lighting lost pathways now open
To your fertile core.