{"id":1910,"date":"2010-08-14T19:13:28","date_gmt":"2010-08-14T19:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/?p=1910"},"modified":"2010-08-17T21:35:53","modified_gmt":"2010-08-17T21:35:53","slug":"backyard-vowels-the-poetry-of-paul-j-willis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/2010-08\/backyard-vowels-the-poetry-of-paul-j-willis\/","title":{"rendered":"Backyard Vowels&#8211;The Poetry of Paul J. Willis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1911\" title=\"Willis1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Willis1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"333\" height=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Willis1.jpg 333w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Willis1-99x150.jpg 99w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Willis1-266x400.jpg 266w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 333px) 100vw, 333px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>We are constantly amazed by the many talents and resources to be found in and around Santa Barbara.<\/p>\n<p>This happened once again recently when we were grazing through our (phenomenal) Public Library and discovered, prominently displayed\u00a0 amongst the &#8220;Staff Picks&#8221; shelves, the latest p0etry collection of Westmont English professor, Paul J. Willis, entitled &#8220;Rosing from the Dead.&#8221;\u00a0 It turns out you don&#8217;t have to sail alone around the room or to the moon to find great poetry.\u00a0 It is here, being conjured in our own backyard, by Paul Willis, along with many others such as Perie Longo and David Starkey.\u00a0 You can get a good flavor for the local talent<strong> <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbpoetry.net\/SBPOETS.html\">here<\/a><\/strong> and can catch up on the Santa Barbara Poet Laureate effort <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sbartscommission.org\/poet_laureate\/index.html\"><strong>here<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The poems and writings of Paul Willis have been featured, amongst other places, on <em>Verse Daily<\/em> and Garrison Keillor&#8217;s <em>The Writer&#8217;s Almanac, <\/em>and in <em>The Best American Poetry<\/em> <em>1996<\/em>, <em>Image, Poetry, <\/em><em>and <\/em><em>The Best American Spiritual Writing 2004<\/em> (Houghton Mifflin)<em> <\/em><em> <\/em><em>.<br \/>\n<\/em><\/p>\n<p>In &#8220;Rosing from the Dead,&#8221; Willis uses the platforms of his family life, work at Westmont, hiking adventures and faith as subject matter from which to leap into the poetic realm.\u00a0 There is abundant humor, darkness, beauty and wonder strewn throughout these fine poems.\u00a0 We highly recommend you seek out &#8220;Rosing from the Dead.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Below are two poems from this worthy collection (used by kind permission of the author).<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-1913\" title=\"Annies' Wish\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Annies-Wish-415x650.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"415\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Annies-Wish-415x650.jpg 415w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Annies-Wish-95x150.jpg 95w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Annies-Wish-255x400.jpg 255w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Annies-Wish.jpg 830w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 415px) 100vw, 415px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-1912\" title=\"Gospel Train\" src=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gospel-Train-335x650.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"335\" height=\"650\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gospel-Train-335x650.jpg 335w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gospel-Train-77x150.jpg 77w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gospel-Train-206x400.jpg 206w, https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Gospel-Train.jpg 700w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 335px) 100vw, 335px\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We are constantly amazed by the many talents and resources to be found in and around Santa Barbara. This happened once again recently when we were grazing through our (phenomenal) Public Library and discovered, prominently displayed\u00a0 amongst the &#8220;Staff Picks&#8221; shelves, the latest p0etry collection of Westmont English professor, Paul J. Willis, entitled &#8220;Rosing from [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thelefortreport.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}