The Little Red House

Dear Reader,

If you can clearly explain what a poet is, please feel free to enlighten me. I contend that no one knows what such a strange beast really is. I know what it means to write something that looks like a poem. I am, however, incapable of referring to myself as a poet in the same manner, as I do not claim to know any truth. I can only claim to be looking for truth. The contents of this book are attempts at reaching some sort of more intense form of a language that is not even mine. I imagine that most people who read these pages will wonder what I am talking about. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, I cannot help anyone in their quest for meaning. No key, no code, no cypher, no method will help anyone ascertain meaning. But if one sentence gives you pause, if you find one word even remotely intriguing for what it sounds like or says, maybe, then my task here is done. I can go no further.

Born nowhere in particular twenty years after the most significant event of his life, Larry Benjamin was raised in France. A graduate of Portland State University and Brown University, he has had several careers, from college professor to entrepreneur and back to educator. He has also been writing what may be poetry for the past twenty years. He now resides in the Deep South, not very far from nowhere in particular, with his wife, Mary, and two delinquent cats, Dexie and Ezra (the Scribe). He is a watch collector and a student of the first sword-style codified in Japan, Tenshin Shōden Katori Shintō-ryū.