Poetry often plumbs the depths of our human experience, and as such carries with it a "realness" and unafraid quality which doesn't tend to shy away from any subject, so long as it falls within the scope of the poet's imagination and experience. Poetry is not afraid to face demons or angels, religion or politics, fears or joys, highs or lows. It is not afraid to make utter, logical sense, or to be complete gibberish, in the pursuit of communicating what it must. Poetry, in my mind, is also a bit of a fluid category: some of what may traditionally be considered to be "prose" or "freeform," is, to me, poetry, if it achieves the goal of painting a picture in the mind's eye of the reader, and emotionally stirring them in some way. Therefore, I have read entire novels which I would consider to be poetry; I've read articles which could be considered verse; I've read pieces in almost any genre of literature which could be classified dually as whatever they are and poetry-so beautiful is the depth of their words. So if you find, within these pages, something which does not fit the traditional category of "poetry" in your mind-be open to the way the words speak, and, perhaps, find yourself surprised.