Six years ago when I published my first independent collection of poems I never thought that I would find myself here. What began simply as a personal challenge to see if I could really complete something has now evolved into a very specific and intentional purpose. This is a lot like how I write. Often I begin with a small goal and that goal usually is just to finish and to get whatever is knocking from the inside of me out so that I can go on about my life having found peace letting whatever it was go. But then something happens while I am releasing onto the page. I begin to tell a story. The story begins as a brief image, a word, or a soundbite of a conversation and then it erupts somehow carrying with it a small piece of myself. Overtime I have come to learn that these eruptions are actually moments where I use my words to evoke something through proclamation or questions that I have yet to find answers to. I have come to like this process of creating jarring images that illustrate things that I believe, things that I know, and things that I feel. It is through this process that I develop a lense that helps me excavate myself and, in turn, see and understand the world. I do not take the ability to do this lightly. In fact I use it on purpose. My aim above all is to move the reader and the listener to feel something and have no choice but to respond to her/his self and the world.