Hi, I'm DE Navarro (David E Navarro). I've been writing for 47 years, won a school contest at 8 and again at 12 (both printed in the Chicago Tribune) and was first seriously published by Purdue University press at 18. I thought for my introduction I'd simply share how my most recent book came to be. Dropping Ants into Poems was conceived and written during National Poetry Month, April 2016. It was a challenge to myself to write a new chapbook of 28 poems in 30 days. The poems were the product of my then 46 years of writing poetry, but were written from the solitude of a mountain get-away and my foothills office, where I isolated myself for more than 5 hours a day and up to 10 on some days, for the entire month, to do nothing but dream-up and work on this project. The end result was 27 poems with the 28th poem actually being a compilation of 18 Zen poems. I also put an essay on contemporary poetry and a recipe for Navarro's Greek Seasoning into it just for fun. Others have called it "ground-breaking, innovative, and habit-forming." Some readers have written to me and said they read the book a couple times a week since they got it because they love it so much. Words can't describe how this makes me feel, to have connected in such a way with my readers. I'm hoping my poetic career kind of really takes off from here. Of course, I'm sure we are all hoping our writing careers take off and we become widely read. We all can dream, right? I sort of look at life as my research that empowers me to engage in the single most important constant in my life and thing I love to do, write. Thanks so much for welcoming me into the forum, I'm looking forward to learning and growing and helping others to do the same.
I have to drive myself, because my nature is to take the easy path and flow with things, and so if I'm going to produce and get things done I have to make myself do them and push through the times when I don't "feel like it." In other words, I am a procrastinator at heart, so I have to drive myself or I'll just play and have fun and nothing will get done.
P.S. On some of those days when I was writing Dropping Ants I actually drank a pint of beer, stared at my computer screen, laid my head down on the desk, and finally wrote two or three lines and called it a day. On other days, the muse kicked in, I wrote three or four poems, shaped the book, and was cranking on all cylinders. It was a wild adventure of ups and downs. I went a period of 4 days with no new poem written, but I had gotten "ahead" of schedule by then, so I was able to weather the lull.
Greetings, welcome, and salutations to the Forum, sir. That's awesome about your book. C-ya around the Forum.
Welcome, David. I would encourage you to take the time to explore the forum; the workshop and journal section is a great place to engage other writers about their current projects, as well as your own. I wish you the best of luck. -OJB
