| Poet/Author

Dear Reader,

     The book you’re about to read is a compilation of poetry and lyrics, written over the course of ten years. The oldest poem is from 1995 (I was eleven years-old then; so you’ll see a definite progression in my work over the course of each section). Rather than putting every piece in order from oldest to newest, I decided to section them off by category. Each category’s contents, however, have been placed in sequence of year-first-written.

     Although most of the categories have to do with its contents’ emotional genre, there are a few sections that contain works of a similar type (e.g.: stories), and are not prejudice in their subject matter.

     Some of the works have been edited, either prior-to or for inclusion in this anthology, and if those edits were content-based, the creation dates were updated at the time of the edit, and the dates of original creation are included on the copyright page of this edition.

     For a lot of these titles, it is the first time they’ve been shared with the public, although one (“The Daydream”) had been previously (and professionally) published. On that note, I’d like to thank a man I do not know, Kovid Goyal, for creating the software Calibre which made the creation of my ebook possible. Writing poetry is easy - it comes naturally and is spontaneous. Creating an ebook, however, takes some finesse. Luckily, I had some experience writing HTML before taking on this project. In the case of this paperback, much more editing and formatting needed to be done, and for that I am as grateful—as always—to MS Word.

     On a final note, regarding any dedication-to segment (or lack-of, rather): I found it would take up many pages to include such a list for this compilation. There are works in this book that were inspired by or co-created by others…some that I’m sure are special to a one, or another… and for that same reason, I’ve decided not to put names on every piece. Three poems, and two lyrics were specifically written as tributes to people, and on these pieces, those tributes are noted. In turn, those pieces which were collaborations include the names of those who helped. (Girls from 12th grade English: Your last names are only included thanks to Jennifer [Sheetz] Ballagh, who helped me remember via Facebook…and Kandice, for the life of us, we just couldn’t remember your last name. If you read this, please contact me for credit in the next edition/s.) All of the pieces within had original drafts before 2005, with the exception of “About the Author” (which was written for this book), and is found on the back cover.

     So, with all of that said, please enjoy the works within this volume in any order of your choosing, and as often as you like.

 

with love,
your friend-

 

 

 

 

 

 

 © 2015 Koda Gallegos, All Rights Reserved