3:30

3:30 a man wakes up after hearing a voice. He flips on a light and searches his memory. Someone or something has sent a message that requires a response or immediate action. Reaching for pen & paper, he waits for words to begin. The texts that follow are half-conscious attempts at recognizing that these same words preceded this life and had directed it from before the beginning. Readers CommentsEmerging from a hypnagogic state, Peterson writes of love, loss and a way home. His poems hover off-shore between lands end and the horizon. Stumbling through the pains of aging only makes the work more poignant. Douglas Leichter, artist New York-Tucson3:30 is terrifically dense and by turns morose, enlightening and painfully touching, many of the pieces uncomfortably surreal Trish Haines, Dharma discipleHard-bitten poems of aging & loss: The man carried the death of his mother throughout his life. Add to that the loss of Margot, his lover of later years, and he wakes at 3:30, inconsolable. It takes courage to write these poems and even more to publish them, and sometimes as much to read them. Andrew Vinca Poet on the RoofThese poems speak to the uncertainty & vulnerability we experience upon waking in the pre-dawn and glimpsing up close that were but a small cog in an unfathomable universe, and still we long for people & places weve lost. Lisa A. Sharp, featherweight