H.D. Wagener has written Poems on Physical and Spiritual Reality for twenty-seven years, including narrative poetry, mystical (spiritual) poetry, Earth poems, vignettes and free verse essays. In writing poetry, Wagener initially called on his experience in abstracting his own technical documents, a process he found to be similar to writing free verse.

The Entire Packet, Wagener’s book of 100 poems (click on Books), is predominantly narrative free verse. Approximately half of the poems contain a mystical element. As of 2006, H. D. puts most of his time into writing narrative and mystical poetry. Another book, Gleanings and Giftings appeared in 2009.

H.D. attempts to incorporate his understanding of mystical reality into his work, and explores the limits of the intellect in the pursuit of mystical reality.

Poems by H. D. Wagener can be characterized as Poems on Physical and Spiritual Reality, which covers all of the available territory. A place for any of the poems can generally be found in one of the categories that follow. For further insight into the scope of HD’s work, browse the table of contents of The Entire Packet, on Amazon.

Narrative poems  
Narrative poems relate a story or an incident, while attempting to emphasize universal messages the situation may contain. This is one of HD’s preferred genres. He writes abstracts of short stories, set in free verse and lightly salted with figurative language (HD does not think figuratively), and vignettes of segments of other peoples lives and his own.

Earth Poems
Earth poems are those written out of HD’s experience and gathered knowledge as a geologist (one conversant with the interior and exterior of Earth and the cosmos), while emphasizing the relations of this knowledge to human experience the world over.

Mystical Poems
HD writes in a mystical mode when he wants to emphasize or attempt to understand his acceptance of the mystical Christian and more especially the Hindu knowing of a greater reality beyond the reach of mind and intellect (the state of “no mind”). In his mystical poetry, Wagener attempts to approach that reality, which may be referred to as That.

Poetic Essays
HD writes short essays in free verse on topics that seem vital to him.

Poems with Rhyme and Tightly Set Metrical Patterns.
A few poems adhering to rhyme and set metrics occur in The Entire Packet. In this genre, HD defers to the genius of Elliot and Frost. He feels compelled to avoid inverting the word order of contemporary American English; he does not speak in inverted sentences. HD decided years ago to abandon the difficult discipline of writing in rhyme in English without using inversions. He cringes when Frost inverts. He also finds that trying to adhere to a set metrical pattern may interfere with his grappling with the sense of his writing; this makes him uncomfortable.

Other Comments on HD’s Technique
HD does seek the rhythms of the sense of what he has written (in pencil) as a first draft, and reinforces these rhythms in the course of revisions. When the pencil draft becomes difficult to work with, HD shifts to the word processor to organize what has been written, and prints it. He then returns to the pencil, rewriting until a confusion of cuts and pastes demands a return to the computer for reorganization. He continues to work with the pencil until the “completed poem” stage.

 

This web site is HD’s offering to you, with the help of his daughter, Kyla Wagener, site designer, and his friend, Robert Klotz.

Contact HD at hwagener2001@juno.com.