Standing Before the Stranger

In Standing Before the Stranger I depict different levels of psychological dislocation, ranging from minor anxiety to insanity, initiated by estrangement from both the external world and the inner world of the self. The speakers and characters inhabiting these poems are either suffering or reacting, often violently, to their inner turmoil. Readers will find dark poems that combine the comedic and the tragic, mix surreal elements with the mundane, and often manage to be absurd and meaningful at the same time. Four music-based poems provide relief from the chaos, but transcendence, for both the speakers and the readers, is only temporary. I employ a variety of poetic elements, but my poems generally have hushed sonics, narrative-based descriptions, and a consistent voice; however, the reader is not likely to achieve any stability within the world of the collection. Standing Before the Stranger is a combined reflection of external reality and inner reality. The introduction serves, in part, to assert that alienation, the possibility of losing a sense of self, the inability to communicate with others, and similar fears, obsessions, and desires, connect all people. The poems work together as a metaphor for these problems, but the collection ends without a resolution. The overall voice of the collection is that of a lonely individual lost in an inescapable cycle. In these poems, the stranger is the speaker, everyone and everything but the speaker, the speaker's own inner self, or the reader. Sometimes, to borrow a line from one of my poems, "the stranger is me."