Before I Forget

Howard J. Kogan is a retired psychotherapist now living in Ashland, Massachusetts with his wife, Libby. His years of retirement have provided him with the opportunity to return to narrative poetry. His poems have appeared in Still Crazy, Occu-poetry, Poetry Ark, Naugatuck River Review, Jewish Currents Anthology, Literary Gazette, Pathways, Up the River, Point Mass Anthology, Misfit Magazine, Flair, The American Jewish World, and Award Winning Poems from Smith's Tavern Poet Laureate Contest (2010 and 2011 Editions). His other books of poems, Indian Summer and A Chill in the Air, are available from Square Circle Press. His chapbook, General Store Poems, published by Benevolent Bird Press in 2014, is available from the author. About his writing he says, "After setting aside writing poetry in my twenties to attend to family and career, I returned to it in my sixties. I'm grateful to have this opportunity to return to an early love and give voice to the inner thoughts, perceptions, and memories that have been my constant and (mostly) welcome companions. Readers familiar with my earlier publications will see some of the same themes continued: family and friends, the so-called real and imaginary world I inhabit, and increasingly as I age, poems about aging and death. I wrote these poems for you, to engage and seduce you, to draw you close so I would feel less alone."