Word-Set represents a poetic
passageway through time,
with words set in experience—real and/or imagined—
to guide one's journey.
About Word-Set
Word-Set, the first book of poetry written by Leon Feldman is a collective writing effort spanning more than fifty years. Beginning as a college student, with his first professionally published poem "A Sonnet to Marilyn" in The Lyric in 1960, and continuing through the new millenium, it captures a wealth of life experiences set in richly poetic language.
Word-Set is arranged thematically; personal observations, transcendent experiences, literature and writing, quick sketches, and places in time give structure to the compilation of written works.
The poems utilize blank verse, English sonnets, villanelles, picture poems, haiku, tanka, couplets, and experimental forms as literary constructions.
Endnotes are included, providing additional insight into the poems, and the creative writing process.
Selected Poems
Empty Journal
I thank you for this birthday gift,
a journal you had hoped I’d use
to sketch my daily musing as
your father’s record of his past.
I’m sorry, for I must confess
its spine’s still tight, its pages clean,
as if to say that no events
did worthy note its owner’s life.
“As if,” however’s not the truth:
experience is full of gaps
no quantity of ink could fill,
or words enough do justice to;
expansive pages, blankly pure,
becalmed by lines unwavering blue,
devoid of words that anchor thought,
permit the spirit sail away
—unburdened and horizonless,
like freedom’s unmarked, open seas
that wordless roll throughout our lives—
to odysseys of poetry.
A Sonnet To Marilyn
Too many restless turmoiled nights I’ve tossed,
reliving a love still rooted in my core,
and then at waking found my love was lost,
resolving not to love, yet loving more.
As moths incessantly seek the singeing flame,
I’m drawn to one whose love is set apart
from mine. My dream is every night the same,
encouraged by my longing, yearning heart.
As curfew comes for tired souls to rest,
and lovers’ dreams alight from heaven sent,
so then must come my own nocturnal quest,
to search for love condemned and long since spent.
So soft I’d sleep if you were not my light,
but dark my day without my sleepless night.
Los Angeles Earthquake
In the butcher’s shop
shifty ground
whacks, tricks,
slickens my feet,
I jiggle
in quavering air,
stare-hooked
to heaving haunches,
muscular beef
jerking, bouncing,
chops flopping,
loops of sausage
looming, hanging,
twitching, clicking,
cracking, snapping
—disjointed—
wavering wide,
wider, I slide
on waxy,
reddish sawdust,
reel and drop,
dead weight
by the butcher’s block.
Baby Doe Tabor at the Matchless Mine, March 7, 1935
The wheels and winches rusted red,
the mineshaft yielded only care,
while shining silver filled her head.
“Hang on the mine, be comforted,”
his promise whispered in the air;
the wheels and winches rusted red.
The mine wound tight its wistful thread
about her spirit as a snare,
while shining silver filled her head.
As fortune from the recluse fled,
the mine played out her features fair;
the wheels and winches rusted red.
Her thirty-five-year vigil fed
on feebleness and disrepair,
while shining silver filled her head.
Now, wrapped in burlap, by her bed,
with snowfall drifting on her hair;
the wheels and winches rusted red,
while shining silver filled her head.
For Sale: Toy Cash Register
A box of tin, this little toy,
has conjured up a giant joy
of memory so clear to view,
its rightful owner must be you.
The till you opened struck a bell,
transporting you, within its spell,
to childhood past, but ever near
—apparent now, forever dear.
That dormant vision, just tolled plain,
shows what you were and yet remain.
Author
With postgraduate degrees in English and Librarianship, Leon Feldman has completed the necessary coursework and comprehensive oral faculty examination in the Ph.D. Creative Writing Poetry program at the University of Denver.
He has worked as special projects librarian at Colorado State Library in Denver and as the children’s librarian at Longmont Public Library. Leon has also taught college and university English courses, lastly at Adams State College in Alamosa, Colorado.
For nearly 20 years, he owned and operated Loveland Gold and Silver Exchange in Loveland, Colorado. While dealing in antiques, collectibles, and precious metals, Leon enthusiastically volunteered his services as a numismatic and jewelry appraiser at many northern Colorado public institutions—historical societies, libraries, museums, and senior centers—that have benefitted financially and culturally from his and his fellow-appraisers’ contributions.
Leon and his family are longtime Colorado residents. Word-Set was conceived in 2009 as a collaboration between Leon, and his son Daniel. Leon provided the poetry, and Daniel the design to create Word-Set.
Order
Word-Set is available as an 84 page paperback, for $9.99 with free shipping. Order securely via credit card or Pay-Pal account.
Contact
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