Traveling On: Lyric Poetry

Duane R. Christianson lives in Davidson, NC with his wife Toni Youngblood. He moved here from Oak Park, Illinois. This is his second book of poetry, the first being "Burning on the Mesa." He retired from the Veterans Administration in 2010 and has had time as well as encouragement to write more poetry since then. He describes his career as a series of caroms between occupations. His poems also disclose tangentially his experience in studying English, his work as a piano tuner-technician, as a job placement counselor, and subsequently as a job modifier using adaptive computer technology for the blind. He spent thirty years working in the field of blind rehabilitation. Today, he tells his grandchildren. "Find something that has no solution but that needs one badly. Throw your heart into it." In many ways this also explains his love of poetry: "I have always liked playing with words, their sounds, images, and music, and especially when suddenly, by choice or chance, they are put together in such a way that they illuminate my life, and the lives of others. May these poems reach my readers in the way that they reach me."