Light Bending
THE COLLECTION OF POEMS OF BILL NEVINS
Bill Nevins is a poet, a songwriter, a journalist, and a retired University of New Mexico educator who has worked in various media including film and video. Bill grew up in the US northeast and has lived in New Mexico since 1996. Bill graduated from Iona College, did graduate work in literature at U. of Connecticut and U. California at Berkeley and visited Ireland, Spain, Mexico, NYC, New Orleans and other places during both troubled and happier times. He is a father and grandfather.
About the Author
Bill Nevins
Bill Nevins, born August 4, 1947, is a poet, a songwriter, a journalist, and a retired University of New Mexico educator who has worked in various media including film and video. Bill grew up in the US northeast and has lived in New Mexico since 1996. Bill graduated from Iona College, did graduate work in literature at U. of Connecticut and U. California at Berkeley and visited Ireland, Spain, Mexico, NYC, New Orleans and other places during both troubled and happier times. Bill is also a member of La Raza Unida, The National Writers Union, and Irish-American Writers and Artists. bill_nevins@yahoo.com
FROM A RECENT REVIEW of Light Bending:
Bill Nevins takes us on a journey through this past century in this little gem of a collection of wonderful poems. I will be brief, as the power of poetry is in the few words chosen to tell the big things without baggage or bragging. This book speaks volumes in a few perfect brush strokes which paint a people’s history.
“Tunnel Rat” brings back memories of the worst, nightmarish jobs the Americans sent to Vietnam had to do, in these days when honesty has been set aside and truth murdered. It brings me back to days with friends who did return, but sat in a crowded room, alone and their eyes focused on things no one else in the room could have seen.
He writes of the generational difference between fathers and sons, the things which shaped those differences that we can know but never in the bones understand, from Pearl Harbor to Dien Bien Phu, and Mountbatten’s demise.
And he writes of the moment, the razor sharp now. Those who are strangling history. He sits us down in the deadly cold of the ICE detention disgrace, but also to the defeat and victory of Greasy Grass.
But also, the poetry of our Celtic past, the mists of time and heroic memory. This is the soul of Irish America, but also the soul of America, those original Nations, and the people who are coming and will be the us, the USA of tomorrow. It is a great collection.
~Lorcan Otway, Former owner of Theatre 80 and The Museum of the American Gangster