In Diamondfire, Lee Underwood loves to explore poetry’s unique forms and structures, new compound words, freshly minted Jabberwocky inventions, rollicking speed-readers, and emotional mind-states that span the spectrum from blind misery, to wide-awake clarity, to radiant all-embracing Higher Consciousness. Some of these nearly 200 poems are short, some are long, all are easy to read, and all are celebratory.
Written over a 45-year time span, Diamondfire is the work of a lifetime, celebrating several locales, including Venice Beach, Hollywood’s neon jungle, and fly fishing in Colorado. Music and nature play an enormous role among Underwood’s many themes.
Drawing from numerous influences, including Gerard Manley Hopkins, Dylan Thomas, Lewis Carroll and e.e. cummings, Diamondfire is in itself a song celebrating life’s vicissitudes from the neurotic dungeons of the anguished heart to life-affirming psycho-spiritual joy.
Said psychologist/author Dan Sapen, “By turns sensual, simple, complex, romantic, philosophical, and always listening for insight into deeper and higher things, Lee Underwood has put into print the fruit of many years of reflection into the kind of living that penetrates to the heart of life, using his poetry always to clarify, reassure, and inspire, and never merely perform. . . Underwood’s presence and his work testify to his nature as a genuine Bard and troubadour.”
As poet and rock ‘n’ roll singer Cyndi Dawson said, “Lee Underwood writes with light. He writes as if he is sending that light right into his poetry in order for the reader to be absorbed into it and shine brighter for it. . . He writes from the perspective of someone who has been around the life-block several times and well knows what struggle is, yet chooses to uplift those he touches with his words. . . Underwood masterfully covers every dynamic of good poetry —pacing, musicality and metaphors rich with imagery and content. Highly recommended.”
