Steve Delia

The Alphabet Concerto Steve Delia

Steve Delia's The Alphabet Concerto The concept for the alphabet poems began when I attended the Philadelphia Writers Conference and took a poetry class taught by Leonard Gontarek. He gave us a sheet of paper with just titles on it and challenged us to pick one or more titles and write poems around them. I tried a few but nothing happened. I put the paper away, forgot about it for months, then came across it again. One title was called, "Beginning With O"; suddenly something clicked and I had a poem. I wrote every first line of the poem with a word that began with the letter O. Sometime after that at a poetry critique session, I was advised to keep developing at what I was then calling, "The Alphabet Poems." I soon discovered that trying to write every line of a poem beginning with its accompanying letter proved to be too difficult and very limiting. I then tried filling the poems with words that began with their respective letter; that's when it really took off. The only letter that is simply impossible to do anything with is the letter X; there are only 25 or so X words to work with. I was unable to produce anything that made any kind of sense. I feel kind of sorry for the letter X. Rodger Lowenthal came to the rescue when he suggested that I try words that begin with, "EX." This proved to be the way to go. "The Alphabet Poems" sat on the shelf for a long time. I was out there reading them but certain obstacles prevented the manuscript from moving forward which turned into a good thing. My friend, the wonderful poet, Sandy Becker, read the manuscript and offered a couple of suggestions, including changing the name of the book, which she thought mundane. She was right. She pulled a few ideas for titles right out of the poems themselves. The winner was taken from the poem for the letter, "C. "The book then became, "The Alphabet Concerto," a title with far more pizzazz. Thank you Sandy! Seven years later, this book finally gets voltage and, like Frankenstein's monster, finally has life. It was a long time coming and is a book I feel proud of. I hope you enjoy it. -- Steve Delia