The Toolmaker and Other Poems

Although it was my profession for decades, I was always reluctant to tell people that I was a lawyer because I could often sense them pigeonholing me, as if my being a lawyer both defined who I was and placed me in a straitjacket of that definition. The genesis of this chapbook was the idea that we are all more than what we do or who we first appear to be. "The Toolmaker" was the first poem I wrote in this series. At that stage I had no intention of writing a series of poems exploring this theme, but they insisted on being written! Every now and then another one turned up! Individual poems focus on a vocation or other personal attribute often used to compartmentalise or define people in limiting ways. Collectively, the poems question this limiting approach to seeing people, attempting to invite readers to see people as more than what they do or who they first appear to be. They try to argue for a less superficial approach to how we tend to view others.