The Rosebud Collection (Expanded Edition)

Follow the link to Amazon.com to see The Rosebud Collection (Expanded Edition).  Twice the drawings, twice the poems.  And please, if you get the book, go back and leave a review.  Thank you.  Raymond

The-Rosebud-Collection-Expanded-Edition

Forever

The saddest thing of all for me is that I am the author of this writing:

Forever

I was silent for many years

Only one bit of wisdom to share with you,

If you are a victim of childhood sexual abuse

This one thing I know is true;

“No matter where you go in life

No matter your endeavor,

If you never come forward about your abuse

You’ll make yourself a victim forever.”

                                           - Raymond Tucker

The Rosebud Collection

The long awaited release for The Rosebud Collection is finally here.  Follow the link below to read more and get your copy:

The Rosebud Collection

Updates to my website

I have made a lot of additions to my website these past few weeks:

If you  get a chance check it out and let me know what you think, especially the new page "My Soapbox."

Thanks,

Raymond

www.healing-through-poetry.com

Let's Get Organized

Let’s Get Organized

Last night I had a dream, a very strange and unusual dream where I had 

awoken to a world where I had lost all of my freedoms of self-expression.  No 

more poetry, no more essays, no more recitals, everything now was under g

government rule.  Somehow while I was sleeping the government silently and secretly took away all these liberties I had based my life on.  My ability to share about child abuse, gone.  My ability to share my opinions on life, Love, the world, especially the government, gone.

Upon my awakening it occurred  to me that we don’t have any grass-roots organizations to watch over our government to make sure that our rights to freedom of self-expression are not threatened.   

Therefore, I propose we start one.  If  this grass-roots organization is something  you would like to help create or at the very least be put on the mailing list of send me an email at raymondtuckerjr@gmail.com with the word organize in the subject line and I’ll get back to you shortly with further details.

Thanks for your help, your support, and your understanding.

I’m going to write a poem.

Raymond

Essay: We Do Not Conform

We Do Not Conform

Wallace Carothers, you have probably never heard of him.  Who was he and what did he do for you?  I’ll tell you in a moment.  He was born in 1896 and died at the age of 41 by drinking a cocktail of cyanide and lemon juice.  He was an incredibly gifted chemist that two years before his death invented nylon.  He suffered bouts of depression his entire life (probably bi-polar) and killed himself seven months before the birth of his daughter Jane.  As with many gifted people he never saw the applications of his work and how his discoveries would change the world.  Every time you put on a pair of panty hose you have Dr. Carothers to thank.

Nikola Tesla, a tremendously gifted inventor never saw the commercial applications of his inventions and as a result was continuously taken advantage of and died penniless. He was the inventor of the alternating current.  Everytime you flick a light switch and a light bulb lights you have Nikola Tesla to thank.

Even Eastman Kodak, so famous I don’t have to provide an explanation, left a suicide note that read, “To my friends: My work is done.  Why wait?”  Bi-polar, probably.

How can I be expected to achieve any more than these great men and the countless more just like them that provide for the everyday comforts I enjoy.

The list goes on and on, living and dead:

Bill Gates

Steve Jobs

Mark Zuckerberg

Etc.

What is it that makes them different?

How is it that they see a fourth side in something when everyone sees only three?

We see this spanning all the Arts, writing, singing, drawing, the entire spectrum.  We see the greatness and the sadness in all the “Greats”, most notably the suicides.  Depression?  Definitely.  Undiagnosed bi-polar, most likely.

I believe but cannot prove that there is a direct correlation between being bi-polar and unintentionally achieving greatness. It’s just a theory.

In closing I just want to quote one of my greatest heroes of all time, Army Officer Nathan Hale, born in Coventry Connecticut in 1755.  When asked by the British Army if he had anything to say right before being hung, he stated, “I only regret that I have but one life to give for my country.”

“I wish I had done more with mine.”                                      

                                                                                         - ---- ----Raymond Tucker (Poet & Essayist)