defending my parental advisory on THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES

I have received a lot of flack over my decision last year to place a "parental advisory" on my book THE COMPLEAT PANTHER CYCLES. I want to take a moment to explain why.

I have not set it so that anyone may not buy it, but for parents who are considering buying it for a child, I want them to stop and think. Think harder than you do when you buy your child a video game whose main theme is to sell drugs, get laid and kill people. Think harder than you do when you desensitize your child with R-rated movies when they don't yet have the life experience to place the stories being acted for them in a context that is healthy for them.

While there is no overt obscenity, no four letter words, no pictures or depictions of violence, there is sexuality. Most of it in the poems themselves, some in my annotations.

The Panther Cycles are the poetic diary of a love affair. With all aspects examined in the time and scale of the events. The full spectrum of the affair I had with the muse I named the Panther is examined in these work and I express emotions and events that we experienced and shared.

There is graphic and frank discussion of sexual activities, including oral sex. There is explicit reference to some sexual fantasies that she brought to the relationship, which I am not going into in detail in this blog.

All in all, I would not give a copy of this book to my twelve year old sons. I would hesitate to give it to any teenager. That's me. The book is frank and direct and honest, but emotionally explicit and intense. I had to think long and hard about it before granting it the PARENTAL ADVISORY label on the back, as I believe in a freedom within literature, especially when it is honest and true and valid.

People get shocked when they read some of the content. All I can say to that is that The Godfather, by Mario Puzo, has more graphic sex, and violence on top of that. That it is a fiction rather than an intense and earnest expression of a real affair dilutes the impact, I am told, but nonetheless...

I've been criticized for the advisory, mostly by people who are not parents. I am not necessarily proud of everything I have done or even did within the framework of these poems and that affair, but I am honest about it. Despite the evidence that we live in a society where we now value denial above contrition, I'll stick to my values, as I consider them the right core values.

Anything less would be cowardly and morally indefensible. I will continue to try and be as honest a man and as honest a creative artist as I can be.