Kirjahaku

Much writing on the subject of death, dying, cancer, and grief is often sugar coated. That is understandable, considering the difficulty experienced by those dealing with it. However, in the process of grieving, it is essential to express, in often raw terms, how excruciating it is. Jere Truer, being both a therapist and a widower, worked through his grief via poetry and honesty, with the hope that these poems will validate others' reality, give permission to bear down into grief and emerge on the other side of it.

Much writing on the subject of death, dying, cancer, and grief is often sugar coated. That is understandable, considering the difficulty experienced by those dealing with it. However, in the process of grieving, it is essential to express, in often raw terms, how excruciating it is. Jere Truer, being both a therapist and a widower, worked through his grief via poetry and honesty, with the hope that these poems will validate others' reality, give permission to bear down into grief and emerge on the other side of it.

My poetry book, Bad Dreams of Hungry Dogs, is my meditation on my spiritual journey and my dialogue with the divine. As a poet, I see my job as one who stands in the midst of the world and reports what he experiences from the point of view of the soul. And so these poems are my soul reactions and responses to outer events in the world in which we live, and also my responses to my own yearnings and questions. Sometimes my responses are angry and confrontive, and sometimes they are beatitudes of grace.Like most people these days as I face the challenges of life, my attitude is more spiritual than religious per se. And yet I do delve deeply into religious traditions of which I have partaken and honored. My relationship with God is personal and intimate. And like all relationships, it is comforting, discomforting, challenging, and often baffling.The title refers to a remark said to me years ago, "The search for enlightenment is like the bad dream of a hungry dog." Hungry dogs whimper and nudge. They whine and pant. They desperately seek something out of privation. Such is our plight as humans in relation to the divine.