Arty Vim Street

arty vim street foreword...

I remember being assigned a poetry reading in a literature class during my high school years. The teacher described the poetry as “classic.” Although my education was limited, “classic” sounded really good, and to an impressionable high school student, it suggested an experience that would be especially meaningful. The poetry probably was special and meaningful, but the problem was that I had great difficulty understanding it and identifying with it. It simply did not speak to me where I lived. Therefore, I dismissed it as boring, above my head, and not relevant to my experience.

As a young adult in my early twenties, I became interested in poetry and discovered that I enjoyed listening to contemporary rhyme in popular songs, as well as writing poetic rhyme. I found myself enjoying poetic expression because I could understand it and because it spoke to the feelings and experiences that are familiar to the human condition.

This compilation of modern poetry is not only easy to understand, it embodies a special flare for the complexity of emotions and feelings common to our experience, and it presents the unique intellectual challenge that makes poetry attractive to us. Additionally, it speaks to each of us where we live because it probes the matters of the heart. You will be taken to places you have already been, and the thoughts that you couldn’t express at the time will trigger memories and feelings that free, excite, and heal. This book takes you on a poetic journey that can only be described as a journey “From the Heart, To the Heart!” Buckle up! You are about to enter the

—Dan G. Campbell

Major Gifts Officer, Harding University