I have been a priest for fifteen years. Since October 2010, I have served as a first-time pastor of Holy Trinity Church in Poughkeepsie, New York. This is a collection of most of my church bulletin messages, entitled, "A Word From the Pastor," as well as some my letters for a variety of parish mailings.
In 2005, Robert Repenning, a Catholic priest served as an Army Chaplain in Iraq. This is the printed version of his on line journal, which he kept during his deployment. "By My Side" provides a unique perspective of his ministry in Iraq blending Catholicism, politics, rock and roll, and personal reflection while also being a vehicle to keep in touch with his loved ones while he was away.
For years these poems sat in file folder. They just didn't seem to belong anywhere, until one day I noticed that they were meant to be together and to be shared. In the old days, poems without a home eventually would be burnt down by the river at Mount Saint Vincent's College. Thankfully Danny O said something discouraging of this practice and so for years poems for the fire have waited to survive the night and see the light of day.
The Ghostland Ritual is a poem sequence, a tapestry of sorts, that is part confession, part memoir, part lament, part prayer, part meditation, part exorcism. It veers into hidden territories not always given light. Replete with contradictions, repetitions, exultations, degradations, omissions, despair, hope, clichés; the Ghostland Ritual is an invitation into an experience. These cantos belong to a process, a personal ritual of expression intended to touch the sacred precincts of the heart, mind and soul, and to strip away the powers that the corrupting, caustic experience of evil, in the form of war, continuously unleashes.
Pedestrian Dialectics is the name of my new work of poetry. Although, several of these poems have found employment elsewhere, and in perhaps altered permutations, the poems as they appear in this volume form one cohesive bond. This is a poetic laboratory notebook. Usually my final copies prior to typing them into the computer are collected in a notebook. The form that this is presented in, resembles one of my notebooks, with only the slightest of omissions. I maintained the handwritten aspect. I like my handwriting, and I think it is pretty neat. However, it is also a tool of expression. Sometimes the way the script lies on the page can dictate the direction a poem is going in. And then there are times when the meaning may be obscured by an unclear word. This allows the reader freedom to apply editorial judgments where the reader may see fit.
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