Regarding “Vagary,” Fred Dale shared, “Music sets us in motion. It solves our idleness. As Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony played, I was on a trail in Wales, but also in a seat at a concert hall—one ear to the trail, one ear to the music around me. The third movement ends with a rolling crash—waves against the cliffs. And, slightly lost, I applauded out of place, to a quiet, shocked, and judging hall. “Vagary” is a poem that comments on how society shapes, or provides guidelines on the “correctness” of responding to art.”   

Fred Dale is a husband to his wife, Valerie, and a father to his occasionally good dog, Earl. He is a faculty member in the Department of English at the University of North Florida. He earned an MFA from the University of Tampa, but mostly, he just grades papers. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in Sugar House Review, The Summerset Review, Chiron Review, Tipton Poetry Journal, The Evansville Review, and others. Three of his poems have been nominated for the Pushcart Prize.