Still Burning: Collected Poems 1963-2013

I will always be grateful for my husband Hal for his steadfast support and enduring patience, who understood my need to pursue my passion; for the members of The Detroit Writers Guild's years of encouragement and keen insights; to the Burton Historical Collection of The Detroit Public Library Main Branch where the originals of these works and others are archived in The Michigan Writers collection; and for Professors Allen Koppenhaver and Herbert Merrill of Wittenberg University who not only helped light the fire under a budding writer, but tended it masterfully at the beginning so it would not die out. Over the years, some works have been lost in moves or in computer crashes and I especially grieve the loss of Ruby Falls, which was first place winner in the 1989 Mr. Cogito Press publication, and the poem RBIs which never found its way to publication but was dedicated to a childhood friend whose passion for baseball equaled mine for painting word pictures. I still hold onto the hope that these will surface some day. Thanks also to the publishers at Ex Libris who have assisted me every step of the way during the 18 month publishing process. This book is divided into 5 sections. Because I wrote mainly fiction from 1963-1983, fewer poems appear in the first three sections. Due to work constraints, I began in 1989 to encapsulate my ideas for fiction into vignettes that I hoped would ultimately be developed into longer works; but as time went by I began to see that I had so many vignettes that seemed to fit into the realm of poetry, I began to look at them anew and rework them into poetic form. My purpose in collecting these works was to fulfill the request of my children that they have a tangible collection of my work without having to go through file cabinets of papers and photos when I die and try to decide what to keep or throw out. This way they can gather once a year if they wish to, and I hope they will, to read through those other papers and journals and not have to worry about having to store them in their own basements or attics. Although some of the early poems were published relatively soon after they were written, many poems were written decades before I had the time to send them out for publication.

• • Author: Alinda Wasner
• • Publisher: Xlibris
• • Publication Date: Jan 16, 2015
• • Number of Pages: 416 pages
• • Language: English
• • Binding: Paperback
• • ISBN-10: 1483643751
• • ISBN-13: 9781483643755