When reading poetry by John C. Winchell, one is immediately aware of the drum beating betwixt the brevity of words, decanting the images like fine wine. He is a master of concision, a style of creating whole thoughts with the barest minimum of words.

The staccato beat of Winchell's word drum brings forth unforgettable scenes of "broken promises... ashen moors... rocky trails.. sacred mountains.. rushing rivers of thought... sacred flames in a starlit canyon.."

From beginning to end, from Kismet to Songbird, his precise phrasing occasionally punches, then longingly caresses and gently swirls one in a tender moment of joy, before dropping the reader into painfully percussive realizations. The soul is, after all, a solitary place of vivid awareness.

"self-appointed heir to an empty fortune..."
"following crumbs of empathy on a once familiar road..."

Winchell writes of loneliness and isolation crafted as "self-imposed penance" in which one seeks love yet struggles to withstand the burden of worthiness. Love requires him (and therefore, each one of us) to examine the hidden crevices of vulnerability that only our souls have the power to mend.

"haunting me with visions of beauty and bliss..."

The poet is caught in his own snare; the stark necessity to be whole. As any man fractured by life must come to terms with prisons of their own making, Winchell unabashedly allows his defenses to melt. In order to let Her in, he must honor his individual sense of love and connection, devotion and integrity.

Whilst:
"following her trail, I pause for years on end only to rise again and travel toward a light on the horizon..."

The reader discovers there is no hope of authentic love without the willingness to give oneself entirely over to the task. It's not a job for novices, he reminds us, for it demands nothing less than allowing oneself to be totally consumed within another.

Winchell strikes at the center of selfishness, holding himself and the reader responsible for refusing to share mind and heart with an, as yet, unknown beloved. Fear cloaked as cynicism, he reveals, is the most unwieldy of defenses. While forgiveness is the shining arc of freedom.

He offers the prize:
"and then you emerge from hiding with a warm embrace
showing your true face(s) seraphim of soulmates"

Inner Pathways: A Poet's Journey into the Soul is equal parts, pathos, passion, and purpose. Whether we intended to, or not, we are on this journey as well. Blindfolded and unwilling, we realize Winchell's desire for wholeness is what we, too, have been seeking. And that, at the end of the journey, our fears of not being worthy of love were a mere facade for the necessity of becoming whole.

-- Janet Ware Doucette, Literary Advisor
Stormview Mountain Press