THE BOOKS
Rod Drought's poetry covers the gamut of what it is to be alive. Life, death, love and hate is explored in commonplace and extraordinary locals from the American Sonoran desert to the coastline of its New England states to name a few. He takes the reader on narrative metaphoric rides to the extreme depths and dizzying heights of the human condition.
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Spawn from Eden
Across seven self- contained but interlinked themes of poetry Drought confronts the stark reality of life and loss – youth, regret, sadness, recuperation, hope, redemption of a kind, and peace, where landscape reflects an initial spiritual desert and mirage but fulfilment. While traversing the contemporary American and universal western experience from childhood, eras of change, and the industrial state, the reconciliation in love brims throughout. The poet’s dialectic emerges from an observed world where a last sigh can be ‘relief’ or where ‘things that outlived their use’ can be ‘resurrected in another form’ and ‘everyone has a shelf life’ yet co-existence occurs as the ‘Present and future’ (are) ‘Under one, sturdy roof’. The self and the general are underwritten in a handshake of recognition, where no matter the obstacle, the ‘art of mending’ prevails over all, in an ultimate invitation to love, what, where, and how we can.
James Walton’s fifth book of poetry, Snail Mail Cursive was published by Ginninderra Press in 2023. He has been nominated and shortlisted in many prestigious organizations and been published worldwide. James resides in Wonthaggi, Australia.
Love and Chaos
poems in the age of ignorance
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Love and Chaos is a collection full of bittersweet reflections that grapple with the intricacies and metaphysics of existence. Rod Drought's perspective is at times nostalgic, other times heartbreaking and continually laced with a humor that understands the delicate balance between melancholy and regret. These works speak of the paradox of being, even as they sing celebration. From the elemental complications of love, with wisps of the mystical and intimations of existence in the majestic desert, here is an artist who understands the painfulness of living and the sanctity of being alive.
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Jack Evans - author of Rain is the Hourglass of Memory
The Adventurers and other poems
The collection is a descriptive assembly of humor, acknowledgement, compassion, acceptance, love and understanding where the reader is introduced to the every-day and the spectacular. The reader dines, sleeps, walks and sails with generations of new families and friends. -Gene Barry, poet, Ireland
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Wake of the Desert Belle
Walking the walk of human endeavor, always sharing, always touching our hearts. Never faulting in displaying a capacity to invoke empathy. Rich in emotion, wrapped around the human spirit and all laid bare in the Wake of the Desert Belle. It is a journey you will never tire of traveling. - Alan Halford, poet and writer, Dublin, Ireland
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The Song We Left Behind
​ At the intersection of naturalism and nostalgia, "The Song We Left Behind" brought me many wistful feelings not only about my home in Arizona but, strangely, for places I had never been. A simple elegance in the writing style pervades Drought's relatable narrative poetry, which takes the reader from the depths of the Grand Canyon to frigid New England winters and finds beauty in every space. This collection is not only for poetry readers – anyone with a pulse is susceptible to being gripped by "The Song We Left Behind." Ryan Gasbarro, M.Sc.
Grow Your Vision
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