10 Things About Me

Gadralneure

10 Things about Me - Gadralneure

1.) I am almost a cliche immigrant. I arrived in New York harbor when I was 7 years old from Germany onboard the SS Atlantic . My first true memory of the US is my father waking me up in the middle of the night to see the Statue of Liberty lit up in the harbor. That image is seared in my brain.

2) I've experienced combat both in the US military and as a sympathetic observer in Liberia during the Civil War. No one should ever have to endure war. There is no such thing as glory, it is a myth, there is simply death and bloodshed.

3) My father was an artist and a writer and I share his DNA. My mother was the heart and strength of the family, my father was the dreamer. He did not fare well, but my mother flourished.

4) I was relatively successful as a visual artist and fine art photographer (darkroom only, no digital), exhibiting in galleries across the US and winning several major competitions. I stopped producing art on a large scale when it became a job rather than a passion and now I only produce a few pieces a year when the mood hits me and don't seek to exhibit at all.

5) I have been writing poetry my entire life. I love the romantic poets, Coleridge, Byron, Milton, as well as Poe, Yeats, Eliot, Cummings, Hughes, Ginsburg.

I've also always written short fiction which I regard as modern fairy-tales. I love a diverse variety of authors; Mellville, Conrad, Steinbeck, Mann, Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler, Patricia Highsmith, Tom Robbins, as well as Philip K Dick, Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, frank Herbert, HP Lovecraft, Robert Erwin Howard, and Clive Barker.

6) I was raised Lutheran, but have been a Buddhist since the age of 22. I even spent time in a monastery, which I must confess, was just not my cup of chai.

7) I used to play basketball, box, and fence and was pretty good, but scuba diving has been my main physical pastime for most of my life.

8) I try to write or re-write every day. I can't remember ever being satisfied with the first iteration of any poem I've written.

9) I am a Film buff and have seen the majority of movies produced in the Twentieth century, both good and bad, famous and obscure. I prefer subtitles to dubbing. Touch of Evil is my favorite film.

10) After a lifetime of travel, I am content in being a homebody and somewhat of a happy hermit.