Dragons and Chiggers, a collaboration between father and son, is now available for purchase. This collection of paintings (Sr.) and poems (Jr.) captures nearly 90 years of memories, dreams, and visions. Both are ekphrastic: some poems written in response to paintings; some art painted in response to poems; some written and painted independently in response to common experience or memory.

Praise for Dragons and Chiggers

Watercolor and poems speak across generations, turning memory into craft and devotion into texture. Filled with imagistic beauty and sophistication, the poems move with tenderness and grit, attentive to the sacredness of ordinary life and the gentle ache of time.

— William G. Wright, author of Grass Chapels, Tree Heresies, Night Field Anecdote, andDark Orchard

_____

Step into a world where the quiet beauty of the everyday is captured in a delicate dance of pigment and poetry. . . . A soulful tribute to faith, heritage, and the natural world, this collection is a must-have for those who find beauty in a brushstroke and wisdom in poetry.

— Millie J. Brummet, Ph.D., Artist

Get your copy of Dragons and Chiggers here.

About the Author

Howard S. Carman, Jr., Ph.D., retired in 2018 after a 32-year career as an R&D chemist at a National Laboratory and Fortune 500 chemical company. A swellheaded scientist, he disdained literature, especially poetry, during his educational and career years. That changed during a spirituality retreat at the Northumbria Community in 2011, when he wrote the first poem he ever kept. He has continued writing since. 

He published his first collection of mostly metered and rhymed spiritual poems, But Now I See: Rhymes and Reflections, in 2017. Upon retirement, he joined Poetry Society of Tennessee and now serves on its Board of Directors and the Tennessee Voices Anthology editorial board.

He is presently studying with William G. Wright, Ph.D., writer, editor, educator, and founder of Blue Leaf Writing & Editing, to improve and expand his poetry. 

Recent poetry appears in Tennessee Voices Anthology, Black Moon Magazine, Abyss & Apex, Braided Way Magazine, Troublesome Rising Digital Anthology, and A Places For All Voices anthology (see “Poems” page).

Howard and his wife, Karen, live in Northeast Tennessee. When not reading or writing poetry, Howard can usually be found in a mountain stream or a river tailwater fly fishing for trout.

Learn more at https://howardcarman.com.