New · David Baldwin's fifth collection
A lifetime of observation, reflection, and poetic discovery: memory, faith, family, and the ordinary moments that reveal the deepest truths of a human life.
Hardcover $34.99 · Paperback $16.99 · eBook $9.99
About the book
Wheel of Water gathers the finest work from a long creative journey. Its poems are shaped by family history, sacred music, haiku and tanka, the rhythms of faith, and the ordinary moments that reveal the deepest truths of human life.
The book traces poetry not as a sudden calling, but as a quiet presence that grew steadily over time. Baldwin's relationship with poetry began through teaching, reading, and private reflection before eventually becoming a disciplined creative practice. At forty-five, his first poem found its way into print. Later, as a technical writer, he filled notebooks with vivid fragments of daily life, transforming brief observations into poems marked by precision, memory, humor, and emotional honesty. At sixty, his work with haiku and tanka brought new focus to his writing and led to publication in respected poetry journals and anthologies.
What makes Wheel of Water especially moving is the breadth of life it holds. The poems move through childhood memories, family, marriage, parenting, aging, loss, work, war, nature, social conscience, and spiritual questioning. Baldwin's voice can be tender, funny, sharp, or searching, often within a few lines. The poems rarely settle for easy answers; they leave room for uncertainty, gratitude, grief, and wonder.
Inside the collection
The poems are arranged in sections that begin close to home and open outward, from the family that made us to the wider world we try to make sense of.
From snow falling on a Los Angeles morning to the glow of a ham-radio dial, these pages trace a son's long look at the parents who made, and unmade, a home. The setting is mid-century Southern California: aircraft carriers and Disneyland, segregated pools and Friday-night fights. Memory shifts, but the feelings stay true. The poems are tender, wry, and unsparing about the facts of family.
A few lines
Baldwin's haiku and tanka have appeared in The Heron's Nest, Frogpond, Simply Haiku, American Tanka, Paper Wasp, and several anthologies. A small taste:
wind over the lake desiccate leaves scrape indolently at our feet like the yearsAmerican Tanka
Oregon fog rumors of mountainsThe Heron's Nest
the hard-breathing trout explaining death to a childFrogpond
a pinwheeling leaf strikes the watercourse and floats around the bend gone forever do you ever think of me?Simply Haiku
bitter snowstorm… strangers become friends for a dayThe Heron's Nest
double-clicking the Events folder our first kiss— remembering your touch, the tilt of your faceTSA Ribbons
More of his writing
Long before Wheel of Water gathered them into a book, many of these poems first appeared on David's blog at wordtreasure.com, a years-long record of the same eye and ear you'll find in the collection. A few to begin with:
The poet
David Baldwin wrote haiku and tanka poetry in his working years as a technical writer. After retirement, he embraced other poetic forms: sonnets, villanelles, terza rima, ballads, and free verse. He even wrote lyrics for church anthems. Wheel of Water is his fifth book of poetry.
Recently retired from the Walt Disney Company as a senior technical writer in its global technology division in Seattle, he has also worked for Boeing, Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, and Amazon. His background includes experience as a naval officer, college English professor, real estate broker, author of a book on technical writing, and masters track and field athlete. A longtime poet, Baldwin served as national secretary for the Haiku Society of America in 2009.
Available now
In print and digital formats. It will appeal to readers of poetry, memoir, faith-inspired writing, haiku, family history, and reflective literature. It is a collection of poems, and also a record of a life carefully observed and honestly set down.
Hardcover $34.99 · Paperback $16.99 · eBook $9.99