Wim’s new book of poems, I.O.U., got published today! It is available from Amazon.com and Adelaide Books.

Here’s what Wim has to say about his poetry:

One of the most common bits of advice a poet can get (or give) is “Find your own voice.” Instead, I look for other voices. My creative roots are in theatre, and I use my training as an actor and a playwright to try to create compelling and entertaining voices and characters. My poems tell stories. I also think that one of the key ingredients of a good poem is surprise. I try to bring surprise to my poems—surprise, thought, passion, and sometimes laughter.

Adrienne Rich once wrote, “A language is a map of our failures.” Poetry happens when words set us free from language. It is a liberation from unwitting collective prisons of thought and habit, for language binds us in more ways than we know. Fresh images, metaphors, and stories bring new vitality to our world of words and to our lives.

I also agree with the late Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai that all poetry is political:

“This is because real poems deal with a human response to reality, and politics is part of reality, history in the making. Even if a poet writes about sitting in a glass house drinking tea, it reflects politics.”

In these days when the forces of oligarchy and autocracy threaten to consume America and much of the world, poetry keeps us alive to the value of freedom and human decency.

Every poem is an act of resistance.