Richard Strawn

Camille Calls Richard Strawn

I once read that Aristotle asserted that poetry was more important than history. With that premise, Camille Calls is a book of poetry about a generation during the years of a foreign war. One of the actors on this stage says, "Poems shine new light on what we thought we knew." In a way this book is dedicated to that generation, though I am only one voice of that generation and my characters on the stages of this book number only a few. In another sense this book is dedicated to you, you who read this book, who hear sounds and songs of Pacific and Hawai'i and a submarine, who dream of a plunge into Pacific surf, who smell rain and ocean and plumeiria, who read and listen. When people listen, they open hearts and souls to whoever is calling. So, listen, because Camille calls. The author was raised and educated in Hawai"i, and has lived in California for 50 years. Most importantly, his high school years and college years were spent in the 1960's, a decade of war and peace, faith and religion, human rights, environmental consciousness, and love. Married in 1968, the author and wife have 6 children and 5 grandchildren. The author is inspired by the spirit of Hawai'i, as described by the Reverend Akaka in 1959, "When a people or person live in the spirit of aloha, they live in the spirit of God."