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John Holgerson: Convictions of the Heart
Convictions of the Heart
About this book
From the author
Many of the poems in Convictions of the Heart were written while living on the Greek island of Hydra. Some are about the island itself, some are about events that occurred there. And, in different ways, every poem in this book was inspired by it. In March,1970, I visited Hydra for the first time as a student on holiday from the University of London in England. I was 22 years old and had been writing poetry seriously… or trying to… for nearly five years. Although I was only on Hydra for three days, something inexplicable happened to me: I fell in love with the place. When I left, I stood on the bow of the ferry, watched as the horseshoe shaped harbor disappeared and vowed that some day soon I would return. Twenty-five years later, I did and, with but a few exceptions, I have travelled there every year since and stayed for longer and longer periods of time. George Slater, an American poet, said this about Hydra: “It’s just the place. It gets in your bones. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just the place.” Those words are also true for me; they constitute one of the deepest convictions of my heart.
Hydra in the late 1960s/early 1970s, as I first saw it, is pictured on the cover. For a picture of Hydra in 2019, please go to the page for Convictions of the Heart on my website, here.
Many of the poems in Convictions of the Heart were written while living on the Greek island of Hydra. Some are about the island itself, some are about events that occurred there. And, in different ways, every poem in this book was inspired by it. In March,1970, I visited Hydra for the first time as a student on holiday from the University of London in England. I was 22 years old and had been writing poetry seriously… or trying to… for nearly five years. Although I was only on Hydra for three days, something inexplicable happened to me: I fell in love with the place. When I left, I stood on the bow of the ferry, watched as the horseshoe shaped harbor disappeared and vowed that some day soon I would return. Twenty-five years later, I did and, with but a few exceptions, I have travelled there every year since and stayed for longer and longer periods of time. George Slater, an American poet, said this about Hydra: “It’s just the place. It gets in your bones. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s just the place.” Those words are also true for me; they constitute one of the deepest convictions of my heart.
Hydra in the late 1960s/early 1970s, as I first saw it, is pictured on the cover. For a picture of Hydra in 2019, please go to the page for Convictions of the Heart on my website, here.
John L. Holgerson
John L. Holgerson
Biography
John L. Holgerson is the author of
Unnecessary Tattoo and Other Stains on a Stainless Steel Heart
(Finishing Line Press 2016) and
Broken Borders
(Wasteland Press 2012). He has published poems in small literary journals, both in print and online. He is listed in
Poets & Writers’
Directory of Poets and Writers. He lives in Taunton, Massachusetts and is the founder of the Poetry as Verdict project providing a public venue for high school student-poets to read their work. Since 1995, he resides part of the year on the Greek island of Hydra.
Convictions of the Heart
is his third book of poetry.
