William Aarnes, after teaching for 35 years at Furman University, has retired to Manhattan. He is a frequent contributor to New Verse News. His fourth and latest collection is The Hum in Human (Main Street Rag, 2022).

Other poems by William Aarnes in Verse Daily:
May 26, 2016:   "The Commissioner of Dread" "There's this chance you'll come home one afternoon..."

Other poems on the web by William Aarnes:
Five poems
Two poems
Five poems
"Kindly"
"no"
"Vacation"
"backdrop"
"life"

About The Hum in Human:

"Unlocking experience and memory through image in order to measure the world, explore it, and grasp its power and impotence is Aarnes's great gift. The Hum in Human is full of sensory delights of the body, memory, and imagination. It pulses with what's loved and distrusted, what's lost and erased, what's absorbed in 'that snug dark' and with what's never to return. In a modern world of lockdowns and isolation these poems reveal a life both real and transcendent."
—Rick Mulkey

"Humane and passionate, Bill Aarnes observes our world where 'normal life' is interleaved with what should be abnormal—war, weaponry, trauma. This is a book where 'art' is surrounded by 'heart.'"
—Alice Major

"The Hum in Human is rich with details—remembered things and forgotten things—sometimes dark, sometimes delightful, but always compelling. William Aarnes uses words within words as one entry point to illuminate all the complexities in our language, our syntax, our gestures, and interactions. The Hum in Human is multi-faceted, captivating and smart. The poems cut acutely, and Aarnes is a man who hits his marks like, well, a marksman."
—Michael Kleber-Diggs