Blue Light
The Highs and Lows of a Spirited Life in Poetry and Prose
by Harvey Puppi

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Blue Light is a collection of found poetry, lyrics, stories, and diary entries that chronicles the life, creativity, and soul of a complex man. In writing that is vulnerable, witty, and profound, Harvey bares his heart and soul on the page as he delves into the themes of his Italian family roots, childhood memories, friendships, passions, demons, losses, and loves. These are but some of the intertwined threads that shaped Harvey, the golden boy whose childhood traumas eventually led him to seek solace in alcohol and drugs. His substance use rapidly escalated to a dependency on opioids, in all available forms, that almost took his life on several occasions. In his own words, we hear the voice of a man expressing the darkness of despair and the blue-light elation at finding sobriety. This deeply moving, personal history is one which everyone struggling with the helplessness and the shame that shrouds addiction can relate to and find hope.

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“Blue Light takes us on a writer’s journey that is lifelong and mythic in scope, blending poetry and memoir and song into an epic that speaks both to the demons that plague us and to the hope that keeps us fighting against them. These are fragments shored against a ruin that they finally overcome, leading us, like Dante’s Virgil, from darkness to light.” — Nino Ricci, Award-Winning, National Bestselling Author of Lives of the Saints, In a Glass House, Where She Has Gone, and Testament.

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Harvey Puppi was a born and bred Toronto boy; a poet, lyricist, and a musician. At Carleton and York Universities, Harvey earned an Honours Degree in English Literature. He also studied creative writing in Italian and won The Ambassador of Switzerland Award for a short piece of writing entitled, Io e gli Altri. He subsequently earned an M.A. in the two disciplines of English and Music. His thesis, Musical Elements in the Early Poetry of T.S. Eliot was published in 1983. On April 29, 2016, from a cruel "jest of God", Harvey passed away following a car accident.

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Contributors

Author

Harvey Puppi

Preface

Jayne Townsend