Area 51: A New Collection of Photography and Poetry

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An Original Volume of Poetry and Photography

Editorial Reviews for Jay Desind's mixture of words and photography:

"In Jay Desind's book of poems, words and images, the reader accompanies him as he travels from place to place, seeing the world through his eyes, reading the thoughts in his mind. His photos, remarkably all taken and processed on his smartphone, are used as backdrops or illustrations to his words rather than being separate entities" Susan Navas, Author of the Agnil's World Fantasy Series

"Soon I was immersed in this wonderful collection of photos, prose and poetry. He has a real talent, combining his fantastic photos with gems of the written word in an intriguing book." Robert Fear, Author of Fred's Diary 1981:Travels in Asia

Jay Desind's poetry and photography continues to attract an ever growing readership. His accessible writing has been compared to Billy Collins, and his creative use of photography to help tell a story is unique and original. Area 51 continues this fine tradition. These poems radiate the longings of the heart in various ways.

Sample Poems:

Keats and Yeats

You used to read in bed to me
Little chocolate mouthfuls of poetry
Said it sprang whole from your lips
But I heard snippets of Keats and Yeats
I didn't mind the alliterative betrayals
One stanza at a time over time never added up
Decided early on your love required the words of others
Combined they spun like wool around my heart
But it was the other things developing that scratched me raw
The mass market of you rushing forever farther away
Bins of reduced next to nothing feelings like abandoned books
Soon, the transactions between you and me bits
and bytes in cold space
Yawning, our bed grew in size
Our fingers used to touch but now slivers of
plastic have replaced
How can I ever back again get you to
Breathe broken sentences over the length of my
body

Running in the Fields

My bag is packed and you can't take it back
You can't take back the kisses you landed on my face
Or the promises you made
You can have nothing back, I'm taking everything with me
Deal with it
I can do what I want
I can choose my own paths
The roads and tracks
When my mother learned that I had left
She said leave it all behind and get out quick
I know she meant well, she knew about survival
But she made a complex daughter
Because I won't give back the days of love
I won't abandon the chances at happiness
You might have ruined everything with that slap
But I won't forget the kisses on my face
My bag is packed and I won't be back
But even you cannot erase
The days before the end came
When we resembled those ads in magazines
Running through the fields in our jeans

Area 51

...because when I fell out of my space ship on my way to
somewhere else you didn't blink an eye, just held out your hand
and said come with me and in the course of several months
you--proud and strong with the heritage of your country- took
me to see things I as a young man only dreamed about; but
more than that, you clasped onto my inner hand and showed
me that there are places in the heart that no matter the rough
roads of recent years, are navigable and lead to places that
have no need for futuristic communicators; because the simple
contact of your gaze transports me to worlds