These poems use trans-cultural narratives to address current issues of our country and the world, and of the poet’s own life and times. In a variety of forms and shapes—sestinas, haikus, free verse, blues and ballads, myths and memory—they carry the narrative thread through the pulse of beginnings, change, and continuance. Both local and far-flung, these poems are meant to be heard, enjoyed, and carried into the reader’s own life.