Book Synopsis

John E. Simonds approached his fifth collection of poetry with the urgency that grows from nine decades of orbiting the sun, The scarcity of time adds tension to the need for getting it done and into print.

As with his earlier work, the content of Catching My Drift relates to a range of experience and observations from national concerns to neighborhood detail. The range also revisits family moments, actions and thoughts from the 20th century that resonate today.

How one responds to influences of the distant and recent pasts are part of the understanding a writer hopes to convey-and share-with readers in today's fast-changing world.

The speed of that change brings new challenge to a writer whose topics rooted in last year's conditions seek to meet the shifting attention spans of 21st Century readers in the age of TikTok and clickbait.

The title Catching My Drift was inspired by a neighborhood stream with an uneven history, either dry and overgrown or rushing with rainfall into the Pacific. From there it flows back into the lower stream, creating a sea-water drift in and out with the tides. It seemed also to connote the challenge of an older person guiding an eclectic narrative through the uses of poetry.

Threats and impacts of natural disasters have expanded their presence on our agendas of worry, alongside the mysteries of climate.

The phenomena of artificial intelligence, housing shortages, immigration drama, and land occupation have claimed new heights on our horizon. The writer has weighed in on these, as well as more personal matters, including family losses.

Simonds says that part of his mission of collecting works of the fleeting days is "to leave a record of what was on my mind." The pace of events, the high-speed reel of public personality, the immeasurable effects of social media and digitally-generated versions of human expression have sent us seeking shelter from the whirlwind while trying to harness its drive toward a changing future.

Completing a work of compressed observation on a world and community in which we hang on as passengers, unsure who's steering, has been a test of aging hands and mind, notes Simonds, who believes Catching My Drift was worth that test.

Simonds respects the force and potential of generative artificial intelligence but has not used it in any writing and editing of the content of this book.

Thanks to readers and critics of Simonds' earlier books and to on-line and in-person groups who have listened to him giving voice to some of these poems before they arrived on the pages of Catching My Drift.

Simonds, a retired Honolulu daily newspaper editor, has lived with his family in Hawai'i for 50 years, previously was a reporter for newspapers from Washington, D.C., and other cities. A Bowdoin College graduate and former East Coast and Midwest resident, he has been writing poems since the 1970s, including four previous collections, Waves from a Time-Zoned Brain (AuthorHouse 2009), Footnotes to the Sun (iUniverse 2015), In a Roundabout Way (Dorrance 2021), and Walking the Sunset Home (Atmosphere 2023). He 's been involved in the Hawai'i Literary Arts Council, Friends of the East-West Center, and distance-running events. He and his wife, Kitty, have children and grandchildren in WI. TX and CA, and many nieces, nephews and in-laws in Hawai'i.