R. D. Armstrong

On/off the Beaten Path: the Road Poems R. D. Armstrong

This book contains three long poems about three road trips made in 1999, 2000, and 2001. They are part travelogue, part historical (describing meetings with other poets such as Todd Moore and A. D. Winans) and part personal musings on the nature of things. The first poem describes a trip to San Francisco to meet a number of small press poets. The second is about a trip across the desert to meet Todd Moore in Albuquerque NM and how it becomes a spiritual quest as I relive a previous trip through the same country. The last poem details a 1300 mile journey to Seattle that was undertaken just before 9/11/2001 and it describes the experience of being so far away from home during this national crisis.