Poems Before and After Yoga

The poems arranged before the yoga poems are about staying in touch with language during a difficult period in my life. In these early poems I tried different voices in order to arrive at change in myself. In the end I learned that all I'd done was to hide from myself and others, even those closest to me, because of a fear of commitment. The self-irony I used, while revealing some truth about myself, became a self-protective shield that not only thwarted my attempts at self-recognition but also denied my deepest desire for wholeness. While practicing Yoga, I learned that the stretching exercises I did not only disciplined my body, mind and spirit, but also challenged my imagination to apprehend points of view far different than mine. I began to wonder what it was really like to stand like a stork, or drink like a cat in the wild, or be a fish looking up out of water, or rise like a cobra. My imaginings led me far into the past, my own and the world's, and taught me to experience compassion in a new way and to accept and fully appreciate the ordinary events of my life.

Author: Lowell Uda
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
Published: 03/02/2014
Pages: 54
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.19lbs
Size: 9.02h x 5.98w x 0.11d
ISBN: 9781496078711

About the Author
A graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop, Lowell Uda has taught English at the U. of Hawaii and the U. of Montana, and worked in Montana state government. After that he became a United Methodist minister, pastoring churches in Colorado and Montana. His short story, "The Cherry Tree," won first prize in the 2011 Common Review Short Story Prize contest. Stories, poems, and creative nonfiction of his have appeared in literary and other magazines, including The North American Review, the Hawaii Review, the Chariton Review, and, most recently, A River and Sound Review, Written River, The Whirlwind Review, 5x5, Assisi, In Our Own Voice, Divide: Journal of Literature, Arts and Ideas, Poems Across the Big Sky, Moonrabbit Review, and The Other Side. His books include Under the Hala Tree: Twice-told Polynesian Myths and Legends (retellings); Get Poi? Childhood Memories of Hawaii during World War II (creative non-fiction); Mo-o of the Kawainui (short fiction); and Valley of Blue Hope: Poems Before and After Diagnosis of Cancer (poetry). Lowell lives with his wife Joan in Helena, Montana.

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