The Elusive Hold and Other Poems

About the Book

The Elusive Hold deals with the first stirrings of passion of first love and also the whole range of feelings engendered by first having and then losing a first love. It also deals with more mature love and feelings engendered by both finding and losing a mature love. There are three different loves addressed in the love poems. The Elusive Hold also examines the many moods of spiritual love and awareness, of finding and keeping a love that cannot be lost. Human love is a prototype for divine love and the feelings involved in human love can merge into divine love. Mr. Odegaard has been inspired by poets of British and American romantic poetry: Woodsworth and Coleridge, Byron, Keats and Shelly. He has also sought inspiration in Holderlin, Rilke, Hopkins, Gray, Mandelstam and Trakl. He also must include Hawthorne, Melville and Hart Crane.

About the Author

Larry Odegaard is the author of a novel about his relationship with Gordy, some short stories and hundreds of poems. He holds a Master's degree in English from U.C.L.A. and has completed coursework towards a Doctorate at The University of Chicago and at Loyola University in Chicago. He taught English and American Literature, rhetoric and composition at Roosevelt University (where he also got his B.A.) and Loyala University. He also taught at Truman and Harold Washington Colleges in Chicago. He took an early retirement after teaching for 18 years. He student taught at Santa Monica College. He still works as a freelance editor and proofreader.