My name is Erin Thomas. I currently live near downtown Portland, Oregon. Mendocino County has been my home since late 2004.

Before moving here, I lived in Mendocino County, California for about six  years. I moved there to work for REBOL Technologies in 1999, but this organization ran out of money within a year. After this, I entertained myself by taking odd technical consulting jobs and a few college classes. Since early 2001, I have been wholly focused on the exploration of poetry. This intensive exploration of poetry seems to be my life course now. The first six months was spent exploring odds and ends of poetry, mostly free verse. The next two years was spent studying the ghazal, a Persian form of poetry that truly has no English equivalent. Since the close of the ghazal project, I have been exploring tercet forms, specifically the villanelle and terzanelle for now.

My study of poetry has not been the light surface scan of popular materials that most modern poets seem to indulge in. My studies include world history, philosophy, and religion, theories in poetics, prosody and rhetoric and much more. The more I learn, the less I know. Through this process I have developed many many perspectives on and around poetry that are so far exceptionally unpopular with other poets. In time, I hope that my learning process will bring me a quantum leap from being the outcast eccentric with an eclectic understanding of poetry, prosody and poetics to being someone who is asked to teach some of what he's learned in hopes of inspiring future generations of poets toward productive and meaningful ends.

In the past few years, my focus in life has changed dramatically. Where once I wanted to "prove" myself by showing how successful I could be, making money, buying things and dying with the most possible toys, now I just want to learn how to enjoy life simply as it is, without going out of my way to affect it. Mainly, as noted above, my focus has turned to poetry. Though poetry has always been my greatest interest and love in life, it has taken me quite some time to become ready to pursue it as a way of life. Today I spend as much time as I can reading poetry and developing my own poetics, as well as developing my skills in reciting and cantillating (singing) poetry. Once and for all, my greatest love is becoming my way of life.

Below are a few links to places in Mochinet. You'll find that most of them have to do with my long pursuit of poetry.

Recitals and Cantillations

One of my hobbies is the memorization and recital of poetry and verse. Most of my recitals are written by Robert Service. But, I have a growing interest in other poets throughout time. A cantillation is a recital done musically--basically, a poem that it sung. My recitals and canticles are all MP3 files. I've made some candid comments about each of the recitals I have listed. A few of them also have links to online text of the poem.
 

Some things I've written

I have explored writing throughout my life. Most of it is poetry. Here you'll find materials I've managed to preserve from my adolescence and early adulthood. Some of this material I plan to revise at some point; some I already have.

 

Journeys Into Poetic Forms

This is a chapbook collection I have been putting together since mid 2002. Presently, the collection consists of two series. Series I is dedicated to the ghazal, and Series II to free verse. I have made each chapbook into a PDF file which may be perused online using Adobe Acrobat Reader. I expect the first chapbook for Series III will be online in February or March, 2003. Series III is devoted to the exploration of tercet forms.
 

Color Themes for XP

I've never been able to stand the Microsoft default color schemes. And with XP, Microsoft has pompously decided that every user of their operating environment throughout the world will enjoy using an interface that seems to be based on cheap children's toys. The XP "look" is a disgusting, wretched eyesore. Here I provide many low contrast color themes using the windows classic "look" that may or may not relieve the headache you've developed from looking at any of the themes provided by Microsoft's complete lack of inventiveness.
 

My Favorite Poetry Author

Robert Service is my favorite poet ever. His poetry was a deep inspiration to me in my troubled youth. Especially his poem, The Spell of the Yukon, which was the first of his poems I ever came across. His seems to be the message of daily acceptance of what is, keeping your chin up and never quitting even though "God knows sometimes it seems even heaven itself is against you", the joys of life's little pleasures, like the sunshine, and the green grass on a summer day, or a pleasant conversation over some ale in a friendly pub. My favorite of his works are his remarkable ballads (rhyming poems that tell good stories) such as The Ballad of the Northern Lights, Clancy of the Mounted Police and The Ballad of the Black Fox Skin, just to name a splendid few. I have recently put together a searchable archive of Service's poetry. People like it so much that there is even a link to it from Art Ude's "The Original Home Page of Robert W. Service", which is considered to be the official website for information about the poet himself, his life, and his poetry.