Robert D. Grappel

I first started writing poetry while in college (to fulfill my undergraduate English requirement), in addition to obtaining graduate degrees in Physics and Computer Science. Attending school in the late 1960’s, I naturally became a self-taught folk singer — a hobby that I still pursue avidly (my main instruments are the autoharp and the 12-string guitar). My “day job” involved designing radar and communications systems for air-traffic control, combining my scientific bent with my life-long fascination with aviation.

Robert D. Grappel

Kintsugi

Kintsugi

Kintsugi is a collection of more than 100 of my original poems covering topics from mathematics to philosophy, travel to religion, gun control to COVID, music to history. There are poems about physics and my views on current events. There is even a poem about the origins of WD-40, the spray lubricant. The title poem is based on the Japanese art form of mending broken pottery with gold lacquer as shown on the book’s cover. The finished Kintsugi is more beautiful and valuable as a whole than the original pot. To me, this suggests that we should each try to mend our part of the broken world as a bit of golden lacquer. Besides the poems, Kintsugi contains many illustrations.