Everything I’ve written or made in the aftermath of my wife’s sudden passing in 2015 is here, some of it in multiple formats, for free, accessible via the drop-down menus above. Status, fame, money–-those fruits of external validation and public recognition–-all appeared irrelevant, impertinent really, from the shadow of that loss. So “free” was important to me. And time felt most pressing: I wanted my work out there RIGHT NOW.  This website is the way I accomplished all that: free, here, right now. Below are my newest creations. Below that I describe briefly each of the headings in the top banner. Here is a link to a thumbnail CV of my academic credentials: KameenCV.

My newest book of personal essays:  . . . Quite Contrary  

In this series, my second compilation of essays published originally on Substack, I use the “lost” Gospel of Mary of Magdala to examine matters pertaining to teaching and leadership in the current dystopia of the American experiment. The “weft” of my argument opens with a very blunt retort to I.A. Richards’ famous assertion that “rhetoric should be the study of misunderstanding and its remedies:” “Sorry, Ivor, there is no remedy for misunderstanding! The best thing to do is avoid it.” Subsequent essays proffer an assortment of prophylactic concepts and strategies toward that end, including “passive listening,” “safe” spaces, and “unconditional trust.” Other essays explore the intentional dismantling of the public education system in the US over the last 25 years, the coincident and equally intentional diminution of higher education, and the valorization of “ignorance” as a means to assert control over everyday Americans. The “woof” of the argument is a series of close readings of the Gospel of Mary, examining the many misunderstandings it enacts and perpetrates in the context of the contemporaneous cultural clash between Gnostic and Orthodox Christianities during the first half of the first millennium CE, the sum of which reveal that many of the most intransigent problems vexing us today were baked into the system right from the outset. It all ends, surprisingly (even to me), on a positive note about the future, the current madness clearing the ground for what’s next and new. And much better. Free PDF here, at-cost paperback on Amazon.com.

Quite Contrary 1:24

My newest poetry book: the other side of the light

November 8, 2024: “Poets, like all artists, can inhabit liminal spaces that are both vividly present, right now, documenting the moment, and powerfully futural, opening ways towards what’s next and new. These two ways of “envisioning,” often at odds in settled times, tend to coalesce cooperatively at historical moments like ours, an old order on the way out, a new one not yet fully fledged, see-er and seer becoming one. The poems in this book may seem on the surface to be doing the former in an extreme way—they are tiny and precise records of perceptions, almost-nothings in a way—and very little if any of the latter—absent as they are of assertions or prescriptions, or even linguistic novelties. For me, what these poems don’t do is more important than what they do. My foundational belief is that the eyes we see with create a default path forward. So to alter that path, which is urgently important right now, one needs first to learn to look in a new way at what’s right there, now, in the moment.” PDF here, paperback via Amazon.

the other side of the light PDF 

My newest work on digital platforms

My Substack page, called The Spirit of Olympia, now contains two series of essays: “In the Spirit”  uses poetry, ancient wisdom texts, philosophy, ethics, and, especially, quantum mechanics, to explore a range of issues that have to do with recovering a spirit of presence in the world. “Quite Contrary” explores the relationship between teaching and leadership, using the Gospel of Mary of Magdala as a scrim.  Both series are now available in book form, free PDF here or at-cost-paperback on Amazon. Here is a link to my page:

https://paulkameen.substack.com

On my Instagram page, called “my tiny poems from olympia,” I write snapshot poems to illustrate photos I take on my walks, a reversal of the customary word/image relationship:

https://www.instagram.com/paulkameen/

“Anyone who goes against the pace of the grind culture is living as an outlier and a risk-taker.”                                                                                                                              Tricia Hersey

Personal Essays:

I’ve written 15 books of personal essays since 2016. This Fall, my keystone book, which opens the series, was  named as a “Notable Book” in the ShelfUnbound Indie Book Awards. These books are available for free, here, via the drop-down menu above, and in paperback and (in many cases) Kindle form, at cost, on Amazon.com.This Fall, Last Spring, and First, Summer are also available as audiobooks here and/or on Audible.com.

Poetry:

 I’ve written 6 books of poems since my wife passed in 2015. I also include 2 others that compile poems I published individually earlier in my career.  It’s all here for free, in PDF form from the drop-down menu at the top the page, along with audiobooks for many of them. Paperbacks and Kindle versions are available at cost on Amazon.

Scholarly Books:

I published two scholarly books during my career as an English professor. The first, Writing/Teaching, which won the College Composition and Communication Outstanding Book Award in 2002, explores the teaching of writing in the context of cultural and historical ideology. My second book, Re-reading Poets, documents my life-long love of poetry via the many specific poets who have made my life deeper and more livable. The publisher owns copyrights on these books, which are available at their cost via the usual online venues. I provide more information about these under the “Scholarly Books” drop-down, above.

Articles and Talks:

I published numerous articles and book chapters during my career, the major ones (from the 80s and 90s, when articles rather than books were the primary vehicles for scholarly exchange) are available here in PDF form. I also include my favorite talk, and a couple of stand-alone essays, including  the first essay I wrote after my wife passed, which opened the portal to all the rest of this work.

My Work on Other Platforms:

Substack: On a page called The Spirt of Olympia, I publish short essays on any and all the things that currently interest me: poetry and poetics, ancient wisdom traditions, quantum mechanics, contemporary culture, religion, you name it.  Here’s the link: https://paulkameen.substack.com

Instagram: On a page called “my tiny poems from olympia,” I assemble reels from photos/videos I take on my walks and combine them with poems I write to “illustrate” them. You can find them at https://www.instagram.com/paulkameen/.

Bandcamp: After my wife died I began to play guitar and sing. I recorded many cover albums to share with family and friends. I usually include a few of these under the “Songs” drop-down menu. Then, all of a sudden, I began to binge-write my own songs, recording 9 albums. This burst lasted for three years, then stopped. These original albums are archived at https://paulkameen.bandcamp.com.

YouTube: A series of videos of me doing “fireside mini-readings of my tiny poems”: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGc0sDl44WnOI9hjIBTenJg