Dear Reader

An impressive, moving, and assured debut collection of poems about the richness of nature, human emotion, and the human condition in general. Innovative and fresh, at times playful at times serious always with a keen eye for the tell-tale detail. Rooted in personal experience, the reader is exposed to and invited to share in the poet's intimate emotional journey, joy, elation, wonder and sometimes fragile memories as well as his iconoclastic take on common Western myths.

Beginning with a welcoming message to the reader in the opening poem 'Dear Reader' that any personal interpretation is as valid as the author's to the challenge of the last poem of the collection 'My Ode to Joy' to find the personal 'addition to the sum of creation,' this collection is sure to delight the reader.

Ben Shafran, born in Israel, immigrated to the US as a young teenager. He worked his way through architecture school at CCNY, graduating as an architect, and has made the New York area his home ever since.

He spent the COVID lockdown period in the Berkshires at his country home in Hillsdale, NY, which is the setting and inspiration for many of the nature poems in this volume. It was during this period that he first started writing poetry, writing his first poem as a personal take on Psalm 1, responding to a challenge, and has been writing poetry steadily since.