The Itch Is Back
by Jim Carpenter
Category: Poetry

Jim was born in 1955. His lifelong accomplishments include the typical sports participation, a brief experience in the world of auto racing, and president and CO of several intermediate-sized corporations. At age forty-one, he experienced a life-altering near-death experience. From that time forward, a search for the answers to the meaning of this life began and his writing also began. When asked why, he'll say, "Nothing of this world can explain what happened to me, but I think it is most evident in my writing." "I don't have to think about writing; I just sit down and begin. In just a very few minutes, I look over what I've written and I wonder where the words came from. I mean, I know I wrote them but sometimes they seem so unlike me that they bring me to tears. There is so much feeling and emotion in them. Everyone has told me that I should publish some of them. I have literally thousands of pieces of work. Sometimes, I just can't seem to start my day until I've put pen to paper and somehow reached that part inside of myself. I hope that somehow the poems inside of this book reach someone else too. The Itch Is Back is about a quest for the understanding of this life. It's about understanding love. It's about feeling alive. I hope that you enjoy." And that's his take on it. Jim radically changed his entire life after the near-death experience. This book is dedicated to those changes. Jim would like to dedicate this book to his two children and to his wife, Brande, who, as he says, is the source of all his endeavors. He says that to dedicate this book to his family is merely a minor detail because he has already dedicated his life as well as his afterlife to them. When asked if there are more books to come, he smiles and says, "There's always more to come." "This kind of mixture between old world style writing and modern philosophy is hard to find anymore. Jim's work seems to transcend time effortlessly with more heart and more feeling than anything I've ever read before. These are truly works that will live on forever, influencing generations to come to read and enjoy. A must-have book for the twenty-first century. No one's library is complete without a copy." "Poetry often does not make it to publishing and that is a shame. The Itch Is Back proves once and for all that the modernization of our world has not fully eliminated spirituality nor love, nor the acceptance of the importance of expression expelled by any generation."