Meet our April 2008
Featured Poet

Michael D. Petti

~ A Romantic Poet ~

Michael D. Petti has been characterized as a "hopeless romantic whose upbringing in Brooklyn, New York helps to ground him in reality." His life, a dichotomy — by day, he's an agent in a highly pressured financial environment; by night (or his his free time), is devoted to his writing, and family. Petti is the author of two poetry books: "Discovered World" and "Lover's Moon & Juniper," co-authored with Minerva T. Bloom
He's written more than two hundred Romantic Shakespearean Sonnets to date, and a third book is currently in process. Petti's free verses also provide equal interest and stimulation.

Petti expresses his passion for literature: "I can't sing. I won't dance.

But put paper before me and pen in my hand, and I transform my lack of physical vocal melody into poetic music, my two left feet into the metrical feet of iambic pentameter. Thus, my humble talent for expressing personal song and dance is realized in the traditional poetic form of the Shakespearean sonnet. Within its fourteen lines—comprised of three quatrains of alternating rhyme scheme (abab/cdcd/efef) and a closing thyming couplet (gg) — the exploration of true love, with all its passion, pain, longing and desire is embarked upon."

" It is a performance that I so fondly and intimately compose."

His early writing ~

Petti embarked on his writing in his early twenties quite by accident:

"My very first sonnet was written nineteen years ago, when I was 24 years old, while walking through New York City's Grand Central Station. Its composition came to me suddenly as an inspiration only to occupy a boring lunch hour. Henceforth, I became hooked by the enchantment of the sonnet's rhythmic essence, the wonder of its epigrammatic couplet."

Petti's Sonnets resemble the 'sugared works' of Shakespeare in its rich and metaphorical style. His verses of love take the reader to a meditation of profound love, and yet, "Drink, Now, My Heart-Sonnets Are Safer," alludes to a platonic relationship where he finds refuge by communicating only through his writing: "I pray for time to spare my beating heart, To touch you once, from earth, before we part." Petti is truly enchanting in each of his intimate sonnet: "In light of love, through each new word I stage, All those who see, see you beyond this page." Indeed. His tone is profound wich follows a sequence. You will note the transition of his first sonnet bridging smoothly right to the last stanza where it progresses up to the final chapter of life: " I will Haunt You.....To be forever your lover, your ghost."

Beautifully done and captivating!

Petti's philosophy on Love ~

"I have often been bewildered by the human pursuit of love. To my mind, there is something very enigmatic about our longing.What mystical hand touches the lovers? Love it seems, imparts power and knowledge in togetherness. Like most other people, though, the road to my eventual long-lasting, marriage has been paved with the expenditure of energy on some special relationships along the way.

Discovering love in the world, is an interesting blend of the physical and mysticism; of confusion, epiphanies and revelations. A pale splendidness of delicate structures in human vulnerability, when it relates to loving and being loved.

In high school, we are young and dumb enough to think we know everything—about nothing we have learned. College offers a different take: We are young, but smart enough to realize we know nothing of all we have learned. We become enthralled, and frightened, and need to prepare ourselves for real life. But we are touched, all the same, by the swift, descending ravishment of love."

"Sometimes we know relationships can never continue; and sometimes we know, we don’t know why. Yeats taught me something about love:"

"We sat as silent as a stone,

We knew, though she'd not said a word,

That even the best of love must die..."

"And, after we disentangle our arms and hands from the beloved, after that brief eternity of togetherness is undone, we begin to scrawl on some enchanted vegetable oil-stained paper pizza plate discarded long ago, our Discovered World. Poetic words for, or never seen by, a special friend that attempt to imitate, pay homage to, and conjure up what a poet like Yeats long ago, imagined of love." — Michael D. Petti

"We sat together at one summer's end,
That beautiful mild woman, your close friend,
And you and I, and talked of poetry."

From W. B. Yeats's "Adam's Curse"

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