Bound Verse

By abandoning not only form and structure, but also logic and objective values in their work, many modern poets have succeeded in producing what C. S. Lewis once referred to as mere "puddles of spilled sentiment." It is hardly surprising, this author contends, if many people find such "puddles" uninteresting, uninspiring, or even unintelligible. In any case, if you are frustrated by bizarre and perplexing "free-verse" imagery, or bored by vague and meandering "streams of consciousness" and seek poetry with purpose, passion, and intelligence, please read on!

The love of virtue, the longing for beauty, the quest for knowledge, and the yearning for ultimate love and understanding are all here in this remarkably eclectic and wide-ranging collection of poems spanning more than twenty years of the poet's life. But this is no mere effusion of sappy sentiments or pious platitudes. The poet engages the mind as well as the heart in his quest for understanding and addresses such issues as the limitations of science, the failures of mysticism, the dangers of subjectivism, and even the shortcomings of theology and the church in some of his more challenging and controversial works. But whether struggling with despair and loneliness or singing the praises of God, nature, and romance, one theme remains consistent throughout the poet's work: that God alone fulfills the deepest longings of the human heart.