Dear Reader,
Last Summer I wrote a short haiku in an attempt to articulate my own journey as a spiritually minded poet trying to make sense of my own interior world:
crushed by his ideals
the wounded monk contemplates
the meaning of summer.
There, the wounded monk was born, and so began the journey of telling his story. A long poem composed of haiku and other short poems seemed fitting for this particular poetic project and it was while I was on vacation in Paris with my wife that the poem began to finally take its shape.
After that, poetry poured out at a rapid rate and in writing these poems I sensed a slight change in my own poetic voice and new depth as it regarded my craft.
What I ended up with was a new collection, a story of a wounded monk searching for meaning, surrounded by poems charting the love and loss of everyday existence. Despite the common use of “I” in some of the poems, this collection is less about me and more about the proverbial soul who hopes to shed itself of it’s shell and reenter the world as a fully realized, embodied soul. To learn how to live fully connected to the hum drum movements of daily life and there find hope and meaning.
But a collection isn’t complete until it enter’s the public sphere and you, the reader, take it into your hands and read its words aloud.
So now, I leave this project in your capable hands, to do that for which the poet is almost impossible—to take these words and enjoy them, not as the result of hard won work, but instead, as a a gift, meant to be read and reinterpreted as long as their are readers willing to read. My hope is that in these pages you would learn to become a seeker, one who settles not for uncommon truth, but seeks “further out and further in” for theatelusive grace found in the ordinary and happenstance, to be as it were a wounded monk, fully realized humans as beautiful for their graces as they are for their flaws.
Enjoy!
-Ryan, A Fellow Wounded Monk
Praise for The Wounded Monk:
“The Wounded Monk is an honest exploration of doubt, being, and becoming. Diaz's long narrative poem serves as a backdrop for the collection and highlights the tensions Diaz wrestles with in his collection's more personal moments. Diaz offers no resolutions and instead invites readers to consider what it means to wrestle with the person they are and the person they might become.”
- Marco Cavazos, Novelist & Poet
“With flowing language and an eye keenly tuned in to his surroundings, Ryan's world seems to orbit in a meditative flight across modern existence, examining every strange, mysterious thread holding the fabric together. Boldly approaching such questions as faith, purpose, God, and the quiet beauty of ‘each living thing / dependent on another’, these poems call to mind the barbaric yawp of Whitman, with the cool tone of the Beats. A wise and pensive collection to be read and reread.”
-Spencer K.M. Brown, author of Hold Fast
“Deeply felt and deeply human, The Wounded Monk is the song of the poet-monk-the search for meaning in a world that so often feels meaningless, the longing for connection and discovery beyond bodily pleasure. Diaz urges his readers to come along with him on this journey, to look, think and feel. Like the frog trudging barefoot through"squelch and slop", if we look hard enough, we might find exactly what we're looking for, in the place we least expect it.”
-Brandon McQuade, Poet
Purchase The Wounded Monk