A Bird Sings or Its Heart Will Break

A collection of poems by David Norris. David grew up in a small town in the Alleghany Mountains of Virginia. He was raised by his great grandfather and grandfather. Pop was the gentleman of the family, and Bud was the black sheep. David has both of them inside him, and their voices continue to make their way into his poems.David left Virginia when he turned thirty and landed in San Francisco for half a decade. While there, he began to publish his poems. However, an unexpected offer came to teach writing and literature onboard US Navy ships deployed from Yokosuka, Japan, to the Western Pacific. For two years, he lived at sea and traveled with the sailors to Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, and the Philippines, as well as a quick visit to Australia and Diego Garcia, which included a chance to swim in the Indian Ocean. However, those times on the water had to end, which led to David transferring to South Korea where, for the next thirty years, he taught on US Military bases all over the peninsula.David’s travels and experiences found their way into his poems, sharing the culture and the language of the countries he visited. Different languages have their own ways of expressing certain feelings and customs, presenting them in unique and beautifully spoken words. The poems in this collection span five decades and have in them the voices of those cultures and experiences that David met and lived. We hear the voices of both men and women as they traverse the worlds in which they lived, moments of pleasure and success as well as the tragedy and loss of others. David says that a voice turns on in his head, and he writes down what the voice tells him. Over the years, he has learned to trust that voice.