Marvin Ray Kiefer

Vagabond's Court Marvin Ray Kiefer

This is a novella-length collection of long stories, poems, and a play. The long stories use poetic language blended with regional English to tell stories of vagabond characters that I have met or been inspired by in my life and travels around the world, but the reader will recognize the settings as centered mainly in Indiana, Alaska, and the Bronx. The stories revolve around the individual and wanderer that we commonly envy but rarely emulate. Examples of these travelers include a young man searching for his identity from a carnival in Indiana to travels across the U. S. to the ends of his life in New Orleans in the story, Vagabond's Court. This is also examined in the story, All Dying Men of the Sea, where found camaraderie takes to the search of self on the waters of the Alaskan Gulf. Next, the poetry discusses morality, good versus evil, the Romantic Writers' use of the Circuitous Journey, conflict, the winter of our lives, and how nature provides explanation to the questions of existence. Finally, the play is the use of Elizabethan Language to examine current social issues with Shakespeare's King Lear as an inspiration.