The Poetry of Sandford Lyne

“The half-time announcer at the 1969 Superbowl football game gave us this to consider: ‘The band will now execute the traditional designs and symbols of our national heritage.’ As a one-man band, I try to accomplish the same thing in my poems.”

-Sandford Lyne

Loch Raven Review has put together a wonderful online retrospective of the life and work of Sandford Lyne, bringing together scores of poems from several different books, and a few of his letters.

He was a tremendous man.

We became friends over a love of poetry, and a similar spiritual outlook. When James came into our lives, and left so quickly, Sandy was able to offer the inexplicable kinship of one who had also lost a child.

Sandy dedicated his life to working with children, teaching poetry workshops to over 50,000 students in his lifetime. Re-reading so many wonderful poems online, and discovering a few I had not read before, brings a little of Sandy’s purposeful kindness, gentle curiosity, and soft spoken wisdom back to me.

Enjoy.