Description
<p><span style="color:rgb(15,17,17);font-family:'Amazon Ember', Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;">Richard II found himself under siege not once, but twice in his minority. Crowned king at age ten, he was only fourteen when the Peasants' Revolt terrorized London. But he proved himself every bit the Plantagenet successor, facing Wat Tyler and the rebels when all seemed lost. Alas, his triumph was short-lived, and for the next ten years he struggled to assert himself against his uncles and increasingly hostile nobles. Just like in the days of his great-grandfather Edward II, vengeful magnates strove to separate him from his friends and advisors, and even threatened to depose him if he refused to do their bidding. The Lords Appellant, as they came to be known, purged the royal household with the help of the Merciless Parliament. They murdered his closest allies, leaving the King alone and defenseless. He would never forget his humiliation at the hands of his subjects. Richard's inability to protect his adherents would haunt him for the rest of his life, and he vowed that next time, retribution would be his.</span><br /><span class="a-text-bold" style="color:rgb(15,17,17);font-family:'Amazon Ember', Arial, sans-serif;font-size:14px;font-weight:700;">B.R.A.G. Medallion honoree!</span></p>
Story Behind The Book
I started writing poetry in 2001 while I was still a professor of microbiology at a medical school. I immediately fell in love with the freedom and creativity inherent in poetry and found it much more enjoyable to write than the scientific writings for research grants, research articles, reports, etc that I had done for years. I have been writing poetry ever since. I like rhyming poetry; Poe and Tennyson are my favorite poets. I also like to tell a more complete story in my poetry. This led to the development of my writing story-poems, which I call storoems. I have become a prolific poet. Poetic Musings of an Old, Fat Man is my third published collection of my poetry since 2003. I like to think I have become a pretty good poet; I was the only poet to have two of his poems win an award in the 2008 Tom Howard Poetry Contest, an international poetry contest in association with Winning Writers, Inc. My storoem, "The Old Salty Poems" won the $1,000 prize for second place, and my free-verse poem "The Assembled Waiters" won $200 for High Distinction. I think that you will find my poetry to your liking if you will give it a chance.
