Welcome!

Poesis is the ancient Greek word for “make” or “compose.” It is the source of the English word poetry, and both its ancient and modern meanings connote imaginative creativity. Techne, also from ancient Greek, means “art” or “craft,” or what Aristotle describes in Poetics as the application of knowledge of the principles of composition toward some end. This is the source of the English word technique, something akin to the skills associated with the mechanical arts. Put them together and you have the name I’ve given to my blog. What I create I then subject to the disciplining forces of craft, if not always with success, I hope always without becoming too mechanical to lose all interest.

Over time I’ll be putting up anything from creative nonfiction pieces (see “Riffing on Old"), short fiction (forthcoming: a man becomes obsessed with a woman in a painting before embarking on a walking tour of Savannah, culminating in his getting lost in a cemetery), and, beginning soon, an occasional continuing series of my misadventures in learning to play the guitar I’ll be calling “Guitar Chump Chronicles.” Not everything I put up will be finished. It’s in my nature to be experimental, so don’t be surprised if I pull something down and rework it. As I told someone a while back, once written, never finished. The essence of poesis techne.

I want to thank three people for encouraging me in starting this. Tiffany Clemons, a former student and now a good friend, prodded me to start a blog after her own blog (Breakfast at Tiffany’s at www.neologismsbytiff.blogspot.com/) got off to such a rousing start. Kat Privett-Duren (A Witchy Thought at http://009secretagentkitty.blogspot.com/), a long-time friend, loaned me her laptop and front porch while she walked me through the initial steps of setting up this blog site. This was right after her husband, Todd, taught me my first set of scales on his guitar. It was a most productive afternoon. Finally, and not least, my wife, Carol, has been egging me on to get back into writing for more years than I care to acknowledge. Her confidence is more than inspiring. I gratefully dedicate my first piece, "Riffing on Old," to her.