Poet emphasizes mindfulness, inspiration
By Ashley Shah
Michael Dick, a longtime resident of Scripps Ranch, recently published his fifth book of poetry: “Mindful metamorphosis: Poetry for a Beautiful Life.”
His most recent release is a sequel to his fourth book, “Mindfulness: Poems to Guide and Inspire.”
“My latest books are basically all about being mindful and understanding people. A lot of that came from being on teams at work. Additionally, I have seen this in the way mothers care about their young and how they take care of them. I have seen this in small children and the way they are only focused on what is currently happening and not thinking about the future. I have seen this in some very amazing people dealing with life threatening health challenges,” Dick said. “I’m thinking of a story I wrote about in one of my recent books, which is about a dental assistant who worked at the dentist office I had been going to for many years. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and I saw her change for the better through her cancer journey. She went from being a very demure and shy person to an outgoing and uplifting person who wanted adventure. She went skydiving and was also looking for something new to try. We go through pain and we feel it entirely, but it is about finding what is on the other side of that pain that matters.”
Dick has three other books preceding the mindfulness series. His first poetry book. “Understanding: a Progressive Poetic Path,” was released in 2016.
“I always knew I wanted to write a book of poems, but it wasn’t till one day one of my coworkers who was usually very upbeat seemed down. She told me about some difficulties she had been having, so I showed her one of my poems, and it made her very happy. I decided to write another poem to show to her, and one thing led to another, and I published my first book. That first book had poems spanning 40 years,” he said.
His second book “Surely Inspirational, Surely Amazing: Practical Poetry for Discovering Joy,” was released in 2018. The third book which was released in 2021 is called “Happiness: Practical Poetry to Cultivate a Happy Life.”
“I write my poems because I want people to be happy. I want them to learn and be fully engaged in the moment, be aware of their thoughts and emotions, calming and releasing those emotions so we can be aware of what the current movement has to offer. I want them to look deeply so they can understand and recognize the connection between people and events,” he said. “Zen masters and psychologists have written extensively about mindfulness. My books are unique in that they express the interrelated concepts of mindfulness and happiness in rhyming verse within the context of daily life experiences. These experiences include marriage, learning from small children, personal interaction and teamwork on the job and at home, creativity and seeing alternative viewpoints, enjoying the beauty of nature, and health challenges.”
Dick has self-published all his novels through Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
“Writing these poems and then consciously living what I wrote has been life changing. I publish these poems to inspire and guide others to have a similar positive experience,” Dick said.
Outside of poetry, Dick is a systems engineer on a team at a company in San Diego. He came to San Diego for graduate school after growing up in Los Angeles.
“I started writing poems when I was in high school and wrote them all throughout my life. I have been writing poems for around 55 years, ” he said.
All of his books can be purchased on Amazon.com.