I’m pleased to report that the Tai Chi Poem I composed in 2015 is now available for Kindle from Amazon.com. All sixty-two sonnets in order, together with the diagrams I composed for the poem, are now in a single digital document and available for $4.49. You can go through the back entries of this website and find all the poems — they were composed in 2014 and published here — but now they’re available as a convenient download.
The Tai Chi Poem
In 2014, I composed sixty-two sonnets describing the process of moving through the tai chi form that I first learned in 1998 in northeastern Connecticut. That sonnet sequence is now available as a downloadable Kindle file from Amazon.com.
Like most of my sonnets, these are Shakespearean or Elizabethan sonnets, in iambic pentameter with a rhyme scheme running ABABCDCDEFEFGG. Some portions of the sequence may be useful to tai chi teachers for creating effective mnemonics for their own students, but I don’t recommend trying to learn tai chi from reading the poems aloud or reciting them. Some things are better left to professionals rather than me. I also think the poems are quite beautiful on their own. My goal, overall, was to create something akin or in the tradition of the traditional martial arts and tai chi manuals, a combination of simple diagrams and poetic descriptions of the movements. The work is dedicated to my teacher, Laddie Sacharko of Star Farm Tai Chi. The tai chi poem will always be available exclusively from Amazon in print form.
Other Works
The Tai Chi Poem also joins my other book, Poems for the Behenian Stars for $9.99 on Amazon. This second book, a poetic exploration of the fifteen stars of H.C. Agrippa’s list of the major stars of the northern celestial hemisphere, is also available as a PDF download from Etsy for $10. I earn more royalties from an Etsy download, but I understand that Kindle grants me access to a wider audience. Feel free to tell your friends!
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