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Before the Grave, a posthumous selection of poems by D.S. Poorman, is about the nature of control and freedom. It asks and answers the question, 'How free are people really?' D.S. fought against being controlled in every aspect of his life, and this fight is reflected in poems about sexual abuse, alcoholism, recovery, lost loves, struggles to know one’s family, struggles with mental illness and battles with physical health, and his belief that society wished to regulate a person’s time, actions, thoughts and morals. Amidst this constraints, D.S. found freedom in nature. He especially loved rivers, plants, trees, and small animals. And he found freedom in night (2 a.m. dark), his mother’s love, meditation, and finally he found freedom in death. D.S. Poorman, the pen name of David Scott Baker, published three novels during his life, Macky Dunn’s Got Nothing to Lose (1999), Once Removed (2011) and Somewhere There’s A Place (2014). A woodcraftsman and a book smith, D.S. designed and crafted wooden books, including The Largest Poetry Book in the World and The Book of America (an unfinished project that was to collect handwritten poems by poets across the country). Many of his wooden books have been collected by University of Louisville’s Ekstrom Library Rare Book Collection. In 2001, D.S. and Kent Fielding produced and hosted Insomniacathon 2001, the largest music/poetry festival in Kentucky history, lasting over 82 non-stop hours and featuring over 150 poets and 100 bands. The festival raised money for the Franciscan Shelter House in downtown Louisville. D.S. and Kent Fielding also edited The Book of Kentucky (2001), a large metal book weighting twenty pounds, containing handwritten poems by many of Kentucky’s best- known writers. The Book of Kentucky is also housed at Ekstrom Library.
