I AM 

Like you 

Living through dreams 

Making deals with desire 

Bullied by fears 

Tethered to memory’s ghosts 

If you read me 

We’re in this story together 

The insights, directness, honesty and bravery of the poems are totally refreshing and speak volumes about John’s own remarkable character. ~ Rick Alexander
This is some of the best contemporary poetry I've read. ~ Teri Tucker, Author


Book Themes

Finding Out is a warm invitation to join me on a walk through the tangled pathways we all trek. Themes range from the pain of adolescent self-consciousness, to the security of friends, to the fire of romance, to our yearning to grasp the cosmos. The poetic images and metaphors explore—in both contemporary and classical verse forms—who are we? How can we deal with life’s complications and be happy, and what is this astonishing epic we call life?

Finding Out echoes my deepest fears and desires, and my greatest joys and hopes, inviting you to explore your own path toward happiness and enlightenment.

The collection also applauds writing as a means of spiritual inquiry and personal growth. It is divided into the nine chapters described here.

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  • A zig-zag odyssey from religion, to hedonism, to seeking enlightenment, to tumbling back in the tangle, to determining: I Will Find Out.

  • About how I became conditioned and longed to be an innocent child again.

  • Of moods, cravings, depression, fears, self-respect: the swords and arrows and spears of the battle.

  • The reassuring warmth and freedom and joy of family-deep bonds with those who understand and love us: “Friends are my home.”

  • I am a friend billionaire: so many soulmates all around the Global Family of the Intrepid. Here are portrayals of a few beautiful fellow travelers.

  • Snapshots of romantic love on the four levels of subtlety: look, touch, embrace, and union.

  • Translating abstract concepts and feelings into words, words that spark others, words that paint a picture of the writer.

  • A traditional Shakespearean sonnet about the moon and a Petrarchan sonnet about wisdom, based on a John Keats poem.

  • Awareness vs what we’re aware of. How to collapse the trinity of thinker, thinking, and thought to the silent core of consciousness. And what is consciousness?

About John Cowhig

Born in Vancouver, Canada, John Cowhig has lived a dozen lives in 100 countries, morphing from altar boy to party boy to flower child to meditation teacher to businessman to commercial writer. Now retired on Salt Spring Island, he volunteers and writes, including poetry and an upcoming series of memoirs.

Poems

The poems in Finding Out are written in both modern and traditional forms: free verse, blank verse, rhyme, plus a couple of sonnets. 

The sonnet is one of the most beloved traditional structures (from the original Italian, sonetto, which means, “A little song”). It may explore complex emotions, or themes such as love, beauty, culture, or mortality.  

Glass Moon is a Shakespearean sonnet: 14 lines, following an ABAB CDCD EFEF GG rhyme scheme, divided into three Quatrains (4-line stanzas) and a final 2-line couplet. Written in iambic pentameter, the stanzas develop a theme, which often shifts in the third stanza (the turn or volta) and resolves in the couplet. 

Ron Decter Interviews John

This lively interview cycles through the stages of the author’s life. It includes his bohemian experiences in the ‘60’s, his years working around the world with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and the later drama and emotion of an illness that took him to within a day of dying to an unexpected miraculous recovery.

Ron Decter has a gift for drawing out his interviewee’s deepest secrets and feelings, while keeping their conversation energetic and interesting.