Hello everyone!  My name is Josh Clark and I’m the newest contributor to this most intriguing online magazine.  I feel compelled to give some backstory on myself as an introduction.

Foremost, I see myself as a poet.  I say this unapologetically.  I have no true passions in life to speak of, save three–writing, love, and the poetry produced as a result of the interaction.

There have been two prominent characters that play out on the world’s stage in life’s theater that I have been able to truly identify with; the Outsider and the Casual Observer.  Having grew up in “small town America”, I basically found myself as these fellows by default.  Everyone in the small burg I spent my youth in was related in one way or another to each other; of course, not me.  Often I would wish to be going to school in St. Joe where all my cousins on my dad’s side of the family were.  Somehow, I knew I could just become part of the brick and mortar of Central High School and blend in happily in a sea of faces.

But the small town experience is what I came to know. And I can’t help but think that it had profound influence on me as a writer–hell–as a communicator for that matter.  I was raised rural, and the long silences of the country nights brings one into stark confrontation with one’s thoughts.  More often than not, I encounter folks that can’t abide what is going on within their respective skulls.  Of course, this is simply an observation, perhaps even an unfair interpretation on my part given the impressions I receive amidst varied conversation.  Having said all that to say this; my brand of logic follows that the individuals that wake up one day and see sunlight shining through the dust creating the sunbeam and thinks to themselves somewhere their souls float among this illuminated dust and sets pen to page in describing not only what’s before them, but what’s shone through the eyegate to illuminate the most forgotten and dusty corners of their own psyche–these are the folks who are comfortable with what perhaps lives and lurks within the boundaries of their own heads.  These are those whom history has dubbed writers.

Anyway, that’s just a little bit about me and what I’m about.  I truly write what moves me.  What is poured forth onto the page I best not attempt to conjure or contrive.  Most of what I will post here will be poetry related as I’ve always thought it a cool idea to have some sort of poetry blog.  However, I could be inclined to deviate from the poetry subject matter and wander into meadows (or swamps) of public opinion.  I gotta go, but I feel quite honored to be asked by my Uncle Gary to make contributions to this fine magazine.