Ocean City and Other Journeys. (Original writing)

Ocean City and Other Journeys is a collection of original poetry and fiction. The poetry generally explores the nature of journeys as departures. Leaving home and friends, being lost, and dreaming of escape are some of the pieces of this poetry of departure. Death, growing up, and moving on are also part of the bittersweet losses in these verses. Much of this poetry is in traditional forms--the villanelle, the sestina, blank verse, enclosed quatrains, or rhymed iambic pentameter couplets. Journeys also occur in the fiction of this work. In "Ocean City," in particular, an Ohio family leaves their home for a vacation in Ocean City, Maryland. The narrator comes to see his family more clearly--his father's hopes, his mother's worry, and his sister's wants. He eventually feels the loss in their journey and how it changes them.