I went from a public high school in excess of 3500 students to a small liberal arts Catholic college of 250, including graduate schools. As part of freshman orientation I went on a bus tour of Chicago. I'd lived near the city all my life but I'd only ever seen small parts of it.

I remember at one point we stopped to stretch our legs on one of the bridges over the Chicago River. One moment I was gazing down at the water, the next I was scrambling for pen and paper. To this day I feel that I didn't write "River Town" so much as I wrote it down.

Over the next four years I would be fortunate enough to experience similar moments. I spent the fall semester of my junior year in a study abroad program in the United Kingdom. Included was a ten day tour of England and Scotland. I wrote most of the poems from that time during that tour.

And now I offer them to you the reader. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them.

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