My Story

​I was a very average student. It was hard for me to sit still. My gym teacher understood: my mind, like my feet, wanted to wander.  

I graduated from college, and I became a banker.
​I knew something was wrong when I started picking flowers on my way to work. 

So like St. Francis of Assisi, I quit the world of commerce, studied theology, and became a youth minister. But I knew something was wrong when I started skipping the church services to play with the kids who themselves couldn't sit through the services!

When I launched a tutoring program to connect inner city and suburban kids, I saw that education was at the heart of my ministry, and I became a high school English teacher. 

There, in the classroom, I discovered the power of poetry. I studied Shakespeare, Whitman, and Dickinson with my students, and I started writing poems of my own.

But I knew something was wrong again: poetry wanted to come off the page! It wanted to come to life, so I started acting out poems with my students. 

And a funny thing happened. I got so good at making a spectacle of poetry (and myself) that people started calling me to perform poetry at schools, festivals, parties, weddings, and award ceremonies. 

And I have never stopped.  For twenty five years now
I have made a life of performing and teaching poetry. I've discovered that everyone, from the littlest children to the oldest adults, responds to some kind of poetry.

​We may not all be poets, but everyone has poetry.