Blue Jay and Found Objects

About the Book

On the front jacket of this volume is a photograph I took at a museum ecology exhibit of a Blue Jay sculpted by “trash artist” artist Thomas Deininger from the collected flotsam and jetsam of the sea: pieces of iron, mesh, wood, plastic, and other cast-away items from many water ways — items which appear close-up on the back cover. The artist’s work is a literal reflection of the way the ragtag emotional and physical pieces of a life may also be compiled and wonderfully transformed through the language of poetry: the way in this collection one’s struggle with religious guilt is portrayed as an all-night “wrastle” with an angel; the way the arc of one’s life is mirrored in the bud and blossom of potted amaryllis bulbs; the way heaven might be traded in another poem for a slice of pizza; the way one’s troubling thoughts need to be extracted on another page with the help of an exorcist.

About the Author

Carmine Giordano was born in Brooklyn, New York, and has an MA in English Literature from New York University and was a recipient of a Fulbright Award for Study in Italy. He is a retired teacher and assistant principal from the New York City Board of Education. He is also a nationally certified psychoanalyst and a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Psychoanalysis (NAAP). He is an assistant editor of the online poetry magazine Abalone Moon and the author of six poetry collections: The Courage of Flowers, The Hero’s Journey, Still Sing, The Habit of Spring, Collected Poems 2020, and Saving Daylight. His poetry has appeared in The South Hampton Review, The River Poets Journal, Abalone Moon, Poets of the Palm Beaches Anthology, Perspectives, and Belletrist. Mr. Giordano has spent most of his life teaching writing and literature in New York, Georgia and Florida where he is an adjunct lecturer at Palm Beach State College and lives in happy retirement with his wife Ronnie.