In Black and Light

In this stellar collection of 31 original poems, Clem Stambaugh draws on a lifetime of love, life, and soul-searching. By his own admission, his thoughts - translated into sensitive and sometimes enigmatic poetry - often come from a place of melancholy. Out of the blackness, he seems to always find the light: his secret, beguiling place where song-like stories find a rhythm that are uniquely his words.

In his first-ever published book of poetry, Stambaugh delivers a collection that will be cherished and read again and again.

In poems like "Enter Upstage Left" and "Method Acting," it's truth he's seeking. In "Alabaster My Face" and "What Already Burns For You," he's savage and full of desire. But in pieces like "Novelties and Tangerines" or the paradoxical "The Magic of Maybe," he's introspective and eager for what might be if...he moves to just the right place - somewhere between the black and the light.

In Black and Light may well be Clem's first poetry collection, but he's already writing a second volume. And, he smiles and says, "This is beginning to feel like a trilogy." Perhaps even a book combining poetry and prose, too, is brewing inside his keen, observational mind. We will know only when his words find their way to the page once again.