Matters of the Heart and Soul is a compilation of poems and shorts that express the joyful feelings of being in love, and the pains we feel when a relationship ends, or does not get off the ground.

After my 2nd divorce, and some other life experiences, I started to put my feelings on paper – not being one to share them with another person! This started with expressions that came from being in a relationship; wishing I was in a relationship; and losing a relationship because it would not start or just ended.

It did not take long for me to realized I had accumulated several poems and shorts all based on relationships – the good, bad, and ugly. These came from personal experiences, observations and my feelings about a given situation.

For the longest time I did not share with anyone that I wrote poetry. OMG, what would they say! Then one day, I shared with someone online. This led to sharing with others and I realized I was a poet to others. I had accumulated so many poems and shorts by this time that I considered publishing. I came to this decision because of the positive feedback I received from the people with whom I shared my selected works. Their feedback suggested maybe I should share with others.

When I was online with other poetry authors, we had a process where a statement or a picture was shared with the group, posted for all to see or read. Anyone interested could write something based on their individual perspective of what they saw or felt. What inspiration did it bring to you! This was a very effective way to “pull” feelings and bring them to the surface so they could  become an inspiration to the writing.

If you did write something, and decided to share it with the group [optional], others gave you feedback and provided comments on your poem. This was always the scary part of sharing – getting feedback!

It was interesting to see how many different perspectives you could get from the same picture presented. Some would see love, others heartache; some would feel happiness, others sadness. If we posted a picture of a couple walking on the beach, someone would see a new couple in love, some would remember this as the last loving moment that had that was now lost to their relationship.

Once I accumulated the writings and learned how to share, I decided that publishing my works might be a good idea. Now that it is done, I like being a published poet.

I must say though, there were so many people that were surprised I was writing poetry for all these years – they never saw that in me. I have more to share …

I hope what you have read has touched you in some way and brought to you a memory or a feeling that that made you smile or maybe brought a tear. Something that touched you in some way. I would like my poetry to touch the reader in a way that they feel the emotion on the pages as they read the words that tell the story.

Thank you

Dan