The Heidelberg Poems

The Heidelberg Poems were written while John Kay and his wife Susan lived in Heidelberg over a ten year period. They are six couplets each.

In his introduction, John Kay writes "The poems are dark, often surreal, sometimes absurd, downright painful, and frequently humorous. The voice and imaginative vision in these poems are distinctly European, where we were outsiders, strangers and often invisible - but always being watched. When that changed and we were 'home, ' the voices that fed me the poems disappeared. For me, after writing poetry for 60 years and teaching writing classes for 20 years, this book is the capstone, the best I can do."

Ralph Dutli, Germany's preeminent translator of Russian poetry, translated a selection of the poems and arranged for their publication in the weekly arts section of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), which is Germany's equivalent to the New York Times.

The book contains three sections of poems in English. The first section, "This Particular Kiss," won the Pearl Poetry Prize and was published as a book by Pearl Press in 2016. The second section, "Phantom of the Apple," was first published in book form by Beginners Mind Press in 2010. "Saltines," the third section, has not previously been published in book form. The fourth section is comprised of the Ralph Dutli's German translations. The book is illustrated with line drawings by David Barker.

This masterful collection is sure to please discriminating readers of contemporary poetry.