James Keane Verse-Virtual 2016 July

July 2016

I am a retired business-to-business PR and publishing professional residing in northern New Jersey with my wife and son and a shrinking menagerie of merry pets. I began writing poetry (not very well) 100 years ago as an undergraduate at Georgetown University, where I earned bachelor's and master's degrees in English Literature. My poems have appeared recently in Contemporary American Voices (I was the Featured Poet in the January 2015 issue), the Wilderness House Literary Review, Blue Monday Review, and Atavic Poetry. In 2013, I celebrated (mostly by smiling a lot) the publication of my first poetry chapbook, What Comes Next, by Finishing Line Press. A lifelong Giants fan (New York and San Francisco), I still can't believe I lived long enough to see them win three World Series in five years. If you'd like to see more of my work, please click on http://www.whlreview.com/no-9.4/poetry/JamesKeane.pdf.

Editor's Note: Jim sent "Meaningful Relationship" to me with the following message:

Thank you for believing that I can't write a bad poem. Shows how much you know. :) Attached is a "poem" I wrote in 1971. A friend of mine from college was going through old papers (very old papers, apparently) and found this and sent it to me. Don't tell me I can't write a bad poem. I could. And did. And I can do it again. So there. :)

Of course I read it and immediately fell in love with it and wrote back to Jim practically demanding to publish it. I got my way. So there, Jim. (Psst... This guy can't write a bad poem and he never did.)

Editor's Note: If this poem(s) moves you please consider writing to the author (email address above) to tell him or her. You might say what it is about the poem that moves you. Writing to the author is the beginning of community at Verse Virtual. It is very important. -FF