Jeffrey Jay Niehaus

Preludes

Jeffrey Jay Niehaus

All of the glory that had broken on me Surrounded me and saw me through and through Although I had no idea how to name A power that engulfed me totally And turned my soul onto another road.
–Book XVI, lines 700-704

Preludes is a soul's journey from infancy to adulthood–from the Ohio Valley to south Florida, from grade school to college in New England and travel abroad, and ultimately to a knowledge of its maker. The author is unabashedly and sometimes almost naively Romantic, and the poem shows both adoration of nature and the ultimate failure of such an obsession. The poem's many passages are windows onto past landscapes, and through them comes an affirmation of life and the goodness of life. Ultimately, the author encounters and is transformed by a power beyond himself.

Sea Grapes and Sea Oats

Jeffrey Jay Niehaus

These poems wander through life and memory. They explore art, music, and history, but in an atmosphere of subtropical wonder. Beauty and truth are close relations and the author explores both as memories of an earlier Florida compose a world of recall and invitation.