Elegy to a Surveyor

By Jeffrey A. Graham

This is Graham’s first book of poetry. It represents an amalgamation of the many chapters of his life. These poems were written over the course of literally 40 years.

Graham was born and raised in New York City and moved to Los Angeles in 1989 following a stint teaching American Studies at Lund University in Sweden. He has been an avid student of American literature since an undergraduate at Brown University, from which he graduated in 1979. After Georgetown Law Center and during his career as an attorney and real estate developer, Graham took a mid-life Masters in English at Loyola Marymount University where he studied creative writing and literature. Under the tutelage of poet Gail Wronsky, it was at LMU where Graham wrote the seedling verse for the title poem, the only longer form poem in this collection. While a practicing lawyer and amateur writer, Graham has also been the director of a Waldorf school and a non-profit developer of thirty K-12 public schools in California.

It is Graham’s wish that these poems stir public interest at the intersection of poetry, education, love, and politics.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: May 8, 2019
• ISBN: 9781796030730

Book preview

Copyright © 2019 by Jeffrey A. Graham.

ISBN:                Softcover                978-1-7960-3072-3

                           eBook                    978-1-7960-3073-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 06/05/2019

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Elegy to a Surveyor book’s cover contains a photograph of the Alps bordering France and Italy as reimagined by German born artist Manfred Müller and exhibited at Paris Photo at the Grand Palais des Champs-Élysée in 2018.

Dedication

To Phyllis and Richard

without whom

who knows

I might not even be here.

Jeffrey A. Graham

April 2019

ELEGY TO A SURVEYOR

Four Sections plus a Post Scripture

8

8

8

16

40 TOTAL POEMS + 12 IN POST SCRIPTURE = 52

Where I am, I don’t know, I’ll never know, in the silence you don’t know, you must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. The Unnamable (1959) by Samuel Beckett, Irish author, dramatist, and novelist, born 1906 Foxrock, Ireland, died 1989 in Paris, France.

CONTENTS

I.   REFLECTIONS

Why Do Bird Flocks Fly?

Dear

Double Sense

An Artifact

Definitions

Centennial

Motto for a Social Ethic by Rudolf Steiner

Verse for America by Rudolf Steiner

Damp Paper

Finishing

II.   PLACES

Copenhagen

Todos Santos

Emancipations

Maine

Baja

My Mid-Atlantic

Connecticut

Lower Manhattan

III.   CIVIC VIRTUES

Peace and Commerce

When Will Our Flag Be Mended?

Can Do

Fight the Alt Right

Interstices

Women’s March

Rescued

Willful Blindness

IV.   IN RELATIONSHIP

Turnaround

Hurricane Force

Male Female

Becoming

Call + Response

When I Found You

Dislodged

Indigo

Impositions

Hummingbird Wings

Elegy