What is this?

The artwork of strangers, both alive and dead, renowned and obscure, has had a profoundly meaningful impact on my life. From offering new perspectives that expand awareness to providing mystic metaphysical armor that wards off despair, the honest artistic expression of people brave enough to share makes me feel whole and less alone.

So, this is a collection of poetry I’ve written in the format of a journal. If it has any effect, I hope that it at least helps you feel less alone.

What is its context?

I started getting the urge to write again towards the end of 2024 after reconnecting with a lot of the music I listened to while growing up as well as all of the memories that came back to me with that music. One of the spontaneous urges to write that I followed during that time resulted in a poem I decided to call Glad Tidings of the Black River, which is my birth name (Navid Kurokawa) translated into English from Persian (Navid) and Japanese (Kurokawa). Since then, I have continued to write whenever a meaningful thought passes by and I have a notebook nearby to capture it. So, most of what will be shared here are refined versions of things I’ve written somewhere in a notebook.

I think some context around my experiences would also be helpful when reading this journal, so I’d like to provide a flurry of relevant facts:

I was born and raised in the United States of America in the 1990s. I had a multicultural upbringing and regularly traveled between the homes of my parents, who separated a few years after I was born. I met my best friend, who would become the great love of my life, in middle school. This year will mark our 7th marriage anniversary. I’m biologically male and the way I express gender is masculine, but my inner experience of gender is ultimately non-binary. I studied applied mathematics in college and decided to start my career after getting a bachelor’s degree instead of pursuing graduate school. In my mid 20s I was unexpectedly diagnosed with bipolar 1. With lifestyle changes and therapy, I’ve been able to manage the way bipolar presents itself in me without medication, and I don’t view it as an inherently negative part of my life. Among all of the things I value, I care about honesty, diversity, justice, compassion and love the most. I believe everyone has an inherent propensity for love. At this point, I am more concerned with the non-material aspects of life than the material. I am in a continuous process of learning and reflecting. I need to read more books. I am vehemently against fascist ideology and the rise of what I see as neo-feudalism. I am happy, grateful, and more often than not unafraid.