Trying Hard to Hear You is a collection of the author"s recent poetry along with some earlier pieces reworked. Here is verse-light, free, blank; poems homespun and homoerotic; poetry visionary and palliative; remembrances and hope; lingua franca and lingua in maxilla; something borrowed; haiku-esque vs. grim reaper; bright and shiny-dark yet thoughtful; fanciful and fancy free. Fire, Earth, Air, Water... The horse, Phoenix, the swan, the woodpecker, the brown bear, the otter.