Clockwise: Poetry for Romantics

by Ashley Stone

This book, so fondly, is dedicated to every romantic in this current culture. Oh, how often we must trudge against the currents of today. How easy it is to get lost in futile conversation and empty relationships. And how quickly we may find ourselves slipping into “love” only to realize it’s the furthest thing from real we could ever experience. There are too many distractions today. And to be a romantic in this time, I believe we need to be modern world heretics. The zany ones who don’t quite fit in. But maybe I’m biased because I live most of my life inside, removed from the outside with only the slightest glimmers that don’t overwhelm. You and me. We are the new romantics. Those of us living right now. We are the new Byron and Shakespeare and Keats. And though I have so often looked around only to feel that romance is dying. It’s very much alive. In you. In me. And in those who paved the way and those who have yet to wander behind us. Romanticism is so much more than a relationship between two people. It’s a way of life. It’s poetry incarnate. It’s beauty in every shade of life. And if you are one of the few to actually read my own words, I hope you find them worthy of your time. Let’s not only read poetry ... let’s live poetry. Always. The poetry of the earth is never dead.John Keats

120 pages, Paperback

Published July 9, 2016