THE SPEED OF SIGHT: Poems

In this debut collection of poems, inspired over the past decade, readers step into a series of lyrical landscapes; to see and experience the places, people and poetry-at-play appearing and unfolding in the Poet¿s deeper field of vision.

As a wa

Colin Goedecke is an impressionist poet, living along the green edge of New York's Central Park, and out on the salt-aired East End of Long Island; who often writes in the open air.

"I wanted to be a plein air painter," he says, "in the spirit of Monet, who I think of as an artistic grandfather, and Matisse and his almost edible color, and Winslow Homer, but found I was far more comfortable with a pen than a brush, sketching scenes with a palette of words and language."

On the outstretched canvases of his pages, natural and man-made landscapes and life-moments unfold; are illuminated; sometimes quietly, sometimes exuberantly; but always lyrically.

"The muse truly arrived at a cafe in Rome in 1997," he says. "I married into a passionately Italian family, but this was my first face-to-face encounter with Italy, a love affair I'm sure will never end. There at a table on the via del Gesu, suddenly and surprisingly I found words pouring into my mind and taking shape as a poem. Many other pieces followed; some featured in my first collection. They've been flowing generously ever since. Though I never invoke them, or sit or plan to compose them: they always arrive at their own time and place, and when they do I try to embrace the inspiration in the moment; working as freely, fluidly and light-handedly as possible like a watercolorist; without muddying the picture or mood."

He has often been inspired by the work of other poets, "radiant writers" he calls them, especially Galway Kinnell, David Whyte, Dylan Thomas, Mark Strand, Ted Kooser, Thomas Lux, Simic, Rilke, Neruda and Ferlinghetti. As well as by a handful of composers from America's golden-age of popular music, "those colorful, graceful poets and storytellers in song" from the ´20s, ´30s and ´40s, from Cole Porter and Hoagy Carmichael to Jerome Kern and Richard Rodgers, "who delight, enchant, romance; reach inside and touch you, still, despite the passage of time and tastes."