The Light Within

The Light Within is an easy to read book of poems written over a span of fifty years. The poems are now collected in this volume at the request of family and friends who have in many cases been the recipients of them originally and who have encouraged this publication. Hopefully the poems will speak to the reader as clearly as they have spoken to the poet. They are a reflection of the common events of life such as love, birth, heartbreak, nature, small towns, vacations, death, computers, vacations, and fantasies. Most are lyrical and rhyming, a few are blank verse, but none is high brow or academic. Reminiscent of the works of the romantics and the early American poets, they will hopefully add a more leisurely pace to today's almost frantic lifestyle.

Born in rural Kentucky , Thomas Ray Marshall moved to Louisville at the age of three. His father worked for the Louisville and Nashville railroad as a fireman on steam driven locomotives and in his time at home would often have young Tom read poetry to him from various favorite books. Thomas Ray lived the majority of his adult years in Louisville and the mid west. He attended Transylvania College in Lexington and received his Bachelor of Arts degree as an English major from the University of Louisville. As a heavy equipment salesman he worked the coal fields from Evansville, Indiana before retiring to north west Michigan where he and Nancy, his wife of forty four years, host The Summerplace, an intimate bed and breakfast.