Alan Oak has been writing poetry and song lyrics since he was a child. His style is primarily formalist–he's especially fond of writing sonnets–though he occasionally writes free-verse and prose poems. He is attracted to reading and writing poetry with strong metrical and musical elements, and with extensive wordplay and, at times, sarcasm. His poetic range extends from deeply emotional and meditative works to light verse; his best work is a commingling of the two. Alan counts Tennyson, Donne, Browning, Shakespeare, E.A. Robinson, Edgar Lee Masters, and Edgar Allen Poe as his primary poetic influences. Of contemporary poets, his current favorites are Greg Williamson and Nathan Brown.

Forgive my lack of studied eloquence
As in my current fix I’m not that smart
(Lacking sweetbreads), but I’ll try to impart
A rendering of my state: it’s all suspense.

But, perhaps, I’m not quite making sense.
I am stuck, you see, as scraps, as parts,
Jellied pieces of a poor pig’s heart,
Pressed in a cold mold with indifference.

For argument’s sake I readily concede
This gluing up of bits to have integrity
Of a sort, yet somehow I’ve a need
To regain a living wholeness, to be free.

And though my pieces stay conjoined I feel
Not quite so much coherent as congealed.

Alan's experience and talent with writing poetry is an asset to clients and employers utilizing him to write professional, technical, academic, Web and other "non-creative" documents. In the post-Internet environment, readers attention span has been reduced, and writing in most media is becoming shorter. Alan's skill with the tools of poetry enables him to maximize the emotional and intellectual impact of writing in a minimum of space. Like a good sales-pitch, in poetry you have just a moments to engage the audience or lose them.

He has been publishing poetry since 1988, when his series of haikus on the astrological planets was published in the Dell Horoscope 1988 Yearbook. More of his poetry can be read online at TwitterBard, his blog with daily postings of Twitter-length poems (140 characters or less), longer poems, and occasional book and movie reviews.