Catastrophizing in Catastrophe

<p>The poems in <em>Catastrophizing in Catastrophe</em> had their genesis in a series of recent fundraisers for the English Department of Augsburg University in Minneapolis where I taught for over 30 years. As an incentive to contribute I offered to honor the donors by writing poems in various forms. You will find here haiku sonnets ghazals pantoums villanelles and sestinas as well as free verse and idiosyncratic stanzaic poems. This project was an ongoing labor of love as well as a delightful challenge. The poems were created not just to express my perceptions of the world as distilled through various lyrical conventions and forms but also to delight their intended audience. I hope they offer some pleasure to every reader.</p><p class=ql-align-right><em>--D. E. (Doug) Green Professor emeritus English Department Augsburg University</em></p>