Dharma Poems and Other Writings: the Poetry of Michael Erlewine

Author Michael Erlewine writes: "Poetry for me has been a way to record my inner changes and spiritual experiences. I don't write poetry that often, but when I do it is always in response to some inner realization or other, something I am going through that finally becomes clear to me. And I don't just try to "write a poem." I use poetry as a way of clarifying my experiences, as a way to lock my emerging realization into a form that can serve to bring to mind again and again the actual experience I am trying to understand. If I can capture the experience in a poem, I know that I have realized something or other about myself and my life. And by carefully reciting the poem aloud to myself, by articulating each word with understanding, the idea the poem captures can live again and be present in the mind. " Michael Erlewine is an award-winning archivist of popular culture and renowned astrologer. Perhaps best known for founding AMG, the All-Music Guide, All-Movie Guide, All-Game Guide, Classic Rock Posters Guide, and other large Internet sites, Erlewine is also an expert photographer, author (some 35 books), lecturer, and counselor. Erlewine founded Matrix Software in 1977, the second oldest software company on the web, the only older being Microsoft. Erlewine is also a musician. He traveled with Bob Dylan in 1961, was lead singer and amplified harmonica player for the Prime Movers Blues Band (Iggy Pop was his drummer), and opened for Cream in 1967 during the Summer of Love at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. Michael Erlewine has studied and practiced Tibetan Buddhism for some 35 years and has traveled in Tibet, Nepal, India, and China.