From the Introduction: "I had written the title poem Free Flow a few years before undertaking the rest of this project. I'm not sure exactly when I decided to expand upon it but I think I know why. It was one of those poems that I liked and wanted to do something with but it just didn't fit in or with any other projects I'd done or had been doing at the time. And I think that's why I expanded upon it - it was different - and what made it different is that it was written as an improvisation (I had written it very quickly and with a complete trust and reliance upon first instinct). Writers love to play with words - the sound and rhythm and how these interact - and improvisation creates a very adventurous setting in which to play with them. And so I decided to play by expanding upon the improvisational nature of the title poem, but first, I needed a playground. The structure of the book filled that need. It consisted of using the alphabet as a template - 26 letter = 26 poems. Each letter got its own poem - its own improvisation - or better put - each letter got to dominate one poem and some letters dominated the sound of the poem more than others. In the book - I referred to this style of writing as 'jazzaliciousness'. Better put - I jazzaliciously riffed on one letter at a time, and in the process, I made up some words - deconstructed others - unintentionally and intentionally misspelled some (and left the misspellings bcuz they seemed interesting) and used alliteration and similar literary devices - not deliberately - but just let them happen as they came out. Free Flow is one installment in a continuing series of writing exercises I've started which include (as of now) four other works: Then Now Later, U, Addition, and a collaborative linking haiku project entitled Linking - which was written mostly via text messaging with a friend (Joseph Eugene Davis). Besides being writing exercises - these projects (I've come to learn) also function as psychoanalytical tools similar to inkblot or word association tests. Expressed in another way - these exercises have the ability to give voice to the subconscious. Without a doubt I've found writing to be very therapeutic and one of the main reasons for this seems to be that it allows us to 'get out' things from the inside that we may not have any other way to get out. And this simple act of getting things out and putting them down somewhere (anywhere) instead of leaving them inside our heads to spin and jump and circle and fester and multiply (as they see fit) is where the therapy happens. And not only that - but to put them somewhere that we can view them in a different light - on a piece of paper or a computer screen - allows our conscious mind to view what our subconscious is up to - to view things that we are otherwise unaware we're thinking about."