Poetry. Nature. East-West traditions. Richard Lewis with SHAKING THE GRASS FOR DEW, his first collection of original work, can be seen, perhaps, as the modern Western equivalent of the great nature poets of the East—Wang Wei and Han-Shan come to mind. Richard Lewis writes a kind of surreal metaphysics untamed and unlike anything being written in America today. The Neruda of Tao-inspired poems, Lewis's longer Issa-like, haiku-like poems are fresh with the dew from whence they came: a place deep in the spirit of nature. An amazing and timely vision coming from someone who has lived most of his life in New York City.

Author City: NEW YORK, NY USA

Richard Lewis is the founder and director of The Touchstone Center for Children, a nonprofit educational organization in New York City established in 1969 in the belief that all persons have natural creative, imaginative and artistic capacities, which when encouraged and allowed to develop, find unique expression in each individual. He has edited and written a number of books highlighting the poetic and mythic traditions from diverse cultures, among them Miracles: Poems by Children of the English-speaking World; All of You Was Singing: A Retelling of An Aztec Myth, and The Way of Silence: Prose and Poetry of Basho.