“I write and perform poetry…He used to drive the tractors and plow the fields, now he drives a wheelchair and takes his meals…That’s a story about my dad.”
“This one is called “Nobody.” Nobody loves him. Nobody cares. Nobody wants him. Nobody dares. Cause he is looking for the bottom. That is what he is looking for. The bottom of the bottle, and then he’ll have one more. Cause when life’s sweet nectar done gone sour, man you’ll want one ’bout every hour. He’s drunk on a bottle of whiskey. He’s drunk on a bottle of wine. He was drunk on the love of a good woman. She’s gone. Now he’s drinking her out of my mind….That one is about me. My wife passed away 10 years ago from leukemia. We came off a cruise in 2005, and four days later she was diagnosed with leukemia. She passed away six months later.”
“Performing and telling stories is awesome. There is a certain point where you can suck the audience in and feel it. You see the transition when they buy into it and it is a great feeling. I started the poetry in 1999, when I was hiking in the great Smokey Mountains and the trails inspired me. My writing process is brain to mouth. It doesn’t go to paper until later in the process. It is very vocal. I start out singing, then convert it to words. Doing snap performances helps me fill in the gaps with better words. The hardest part is figuring out the titles.”
“I am in the healing phase of my life. I will be 70 this year. I am 8th generation Tennessean. My rhyming comes from old ballads and hymns.”
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