Merrill Davies

Branches of Love Merrill Davies

When I wrote most of these poems, I had no intention of publishing them. The project began as an exercise at the beginning of Lent in February 2018. My idea was to try to establish the habit of doing a daily devotional by combining it with my passion, which is writing.
I decided to read the suggested Bible passage each morning and then write a brief poem in response to the ideas in the passage. Although I wanted to focus on the devotional thought that would help me grow spiritually, I also wanted to experiment with different poetic techniques and learn what works best for writing about different subjects and expressing different moods and tones.
When Easter came around, I was enjoying the exercise so much, I continued until I had 121 poems! During that time, I talked to a fellow poetry writer who suggested that I publish a collection of the poems in which I discussed the techniques used in them. This book is the result of my efforts and her suggestion.
I have divided the collection into seven sections, and added comments on the poems for each section. My hope is that both readers and writers will find inspiration and better understanding of the poems as a result of the comments. At the same time, I do not want the comments to be intrusive if the readers choose to overlook them.