If you’re at my blog, you are obviously interested in motorcycles, but I’ve found that many motorcyclists are also aviation enthusiasts. Maybe that’s because motorcycling is probably the closest thing there is to flying on earth without leaving the earth. Wilbur Wright understood from building and riding bicycles that he would need to control all three axes (lift, thrust, and roll) in order to fly. When we are leaning through curves, we are feeling something similar to turning in an airplane.

My interest in flight began with building and flying indoor model airplanes, and my interest in aviation history began with a childhood visit to The Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. I think my first book ever was a little staple-bound biography of the Wright Brothers purchased with my travel allowance at the gift shop there.

These interests, and my love of language, poetry, and story-telling, has culminated in my first collection of poems, titled Invisible Sea. (Yes, the air is a fluid, although we don’t usually think of it as such.) “Poetry!” you say. “Ugh!” Yes, I agree that most poetry written and published today is cryptic, elitist, and alienating, but most of the poems in this collection are narrative and accessible. They tell the stories of these brave men who risked their lives to do what everyone at the time said was impossible. If you are looking for something positive and celebratory amid our current cynical and depressing age, then these poems will “uplift” you. Pun intended.

The opening section is in the voice of Wilbur Wright as he faces the theoretical, practical, and political challenges in building with his brother the world’s first airplane. The second section tells the stories of other aeronauts, both legendary and real. The final section focuses on birds, bats, boomerangs, Frisbees and the many other ways that we encounter flight in our everyday lives.

The title poem, a serial poem on aerodynamics, takes each of the major discoveries of air and uses it as a starting point for poetic musing. It is more technical, lyrical, and imaginatively challenging than the narrative poems, but if you are an engineer and especially an aeronautical engineer, a scientist, or someone in the technical trades, you will find in this poem a type of poetry you have not read before, one that mixes poetry and science, disciplines that are often seen as distinct if not opposite.

I’m advertising my collection here because, in today’s world, authors have to do their own marketing, and like I said, I think the collection would be of interest to many motorcyclists. Below you will find a small selection from each of the four sections of the book. Enjoy, and if it’s something you or someone you know might enjoy, the book is available through Amazon (Canada and US), Indigo, and directly from my publisher.