Out of the experience of living in Europe as a youth, a tragic accident, a lengthy hospitalization and loss of a leg, The Cadillac Poems of Steven Forris Kimbrough offers a collection of the poetry of the late Steven Forris Kimbrough. With a mastery of multiple languages, a deep love of nature, an earnest concern for the poor and marginalized (especially Native Americans), a desire to love and be loved, and a deep faith, his poetry is filled with images, metaphors, and a keen understanding of human nature and emotion with which everyone can identify.
Born in Alabama in 1958, Kimbrough lived with his family in North Carolina and New Jersey and then moved with them in 1970 to Germany where his father sang opera and taught at Bonn University. He learned German very quickly while attending a Gymnasium (high school equivalent) and studied Italian as well. Through his extensive travels in Europe, he developed a deep interest in diverse peoples, languages, and cultures, which is reflected in his poetry. While he began writing poetry as a child, this skill blossomed in Germany, writing poems in English, German, and French.
The narrative in The Cadillac Poems of Steven Forris Kimbrough by his father, S T Kimbrough, Jr., weaves together genuine, inspiring, and moving poetry that will undoubtedly stir the hearts and minds of countless readers as they, too, journey into an unknown future.
"Nothing is hidden here, and nothing is excused. The result is a poetry that lingers in the mind as powerfully as wood smoke, or the sight of the first snowdrops in spring, or the sound of a cadence of music, heard in the heart long after the music has stopped.
"I commend these poems to all who believe, as I do, in the power of poetry to give form to the hopes and longings of human experience, and to all who find, in that form, a heightened perception of life itself."
Richard Watson Emeritus Professor of English,
University of Durham, Durham, UK
