My regular readers know that I spent 12 months in Iraq in 2005. In September of that year I took a 15-day R&R leave and met my wife in Frankfurt, Germany. We toured the country by train. During that trip I managed to kick out a handful of poems based on the experience and put them into a chapbook titled Going Dutch.
You can get a preview of Going Dutch at World Class Poetry. You’ll love the video of me reading the poem “Siege” from that collection.
But before you go and watch the video, here’s a little note on the cover photo used for Going Dutch:
That’s me standing in the center of the photo looking like an idiot (those are my wife’s words). The funny thing is she made me stand there for five minutes without telling me she had taken the photo and when I finally asked her to take it already she told me, “I took it five minutes ago. I just wanted to see you standing there looking like an idiot!” I felt like an idiot.
Wives can be so cruel. What can you do?
If you’re wondering whose bust that is over my head, it’s the poet Goethe. He has quite a history with the Heidelberg Castle where this photo was taken. I chose this photo for the cover of Going Dutch for its metaphorical qualities. No. 1, Goethe represents German literary excellence, which goes along well with the theme of the chapbook. But if you’ll look at the other two persons in the photo, they are both moving in the opposite direction; in a sense, they are “going dutch.”
I don’t know who those men are. They just showed up in the photo and I thought it made sense and seemed to fit in with the Going Dutch theme. A sort of “synchronicity.”
Before, I was offering Going Dutch as a poetry chapbook in electronic download for $3. But I’ve reduced the price. You can get the .pdf download for just $1.49, or if you’d prefer the print copy, which sells fairly well at open mic readings, then you can get it mailed to you for $3 plus postage. That’s a good deal. Feel free to drop by and watch the video of “Siege” and if you want a real Going Dutch experience, invest in the chapbook as well.