Sonnets from a Floating Life

Author: Don Moore, Jr.

ISBN 978-1-63868-044-4 (softcover);
978-1-63868-046-8 (eBook).

128 pages

Readers often expect sonnets be written in the style of William Shakespeare. Don Moore, a devotee of the English poet, chose to write his own poems in that classic manner. With free-wheeling thoughts adhering to the iambic pentameter patterns of the 14 line sonnet, Moore explores many subjects beyond Shakespeare’s English Renaissance realm. His interest in Asian legends, American music and life, astronomy, and mythology is penned in admiration of Shakespeare’s craft.  Moore’s love poems echo the Bard of Avon’s romantic sonnets.  However, his compositions in rich verse are created for the contemporary reader. Applying tempered imagery to his poetic vision, Don describes himself in lines of his sonnet titled WILD.

 “I, the poet, sit here singing my songs,

My songs over and over, back and forth

Like an excited caged beast who belongs

In the wild blackness of the Dipper’s North.

I say that Poetry is a feeling

And I possess enough of lyric bent

To taste a bestial newness when I sing…”

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Don Moore grew up in Washington, D.C. He graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1966 and then worked as an insurance actuary and commodities trader in the Chicago area after his military service in Vietnam. With a lifelong interest in nature, history, literature, and the arts, he took up residence in New Orleans, accompanied by his wife Cathy, to immerse himself in the area’s culture. Later, they moved to Lexington, Kentucky, to absorb the thoroughbred racing environment sustained in the surrounding scenic farmland. The Bluegrass area became his final home in February, 2019.

Don’s first book of poetry, The Ballad of Ned Kelly and Lyrics from the Rustic Lyre, was published in 1973. His second manuscript, Rubaiyat from a Floating Life, published posthumously, honors Omar Khayyam. Demonstrating his mastery of various poetic mediums, Don produced sonnets in the style that celebrates William Shakespeare in this volume, Sonnets from a Floating Life.