The Ten Spring Woods

About the Book

Dear Reader. The Ten Spring Woods is in fact a real place, located within the City of Saratoga Springs N.Y. It was with unspeakable pleasure that the author, with his friends, played in that beautiful woodland as a young child nearly eighty years ago. Today, the Ten Spring Woods is but a shadow of its former self, due to the relentless pressures of home building and other human activities. Today it might be difficult to find those ten pure bubbling springs. However, fortunately, a small 15 acre tract of the Woods has been set aside for protection and conservation today. A legend engraved in 1793 on a water pitcher, belonging to the author’s family, says it all: “Come to the living waters, come. Sinners obey your makers call. Oh, come ye weary wanderers home, and find his grace is free for all.”

About the Author

The labor of Jan’s birth began at the San Francisco Opera house in a World War II blackout during the second act of Rigoletto, Jan Pierce tenor, Jan’s namesake, from then he has been haunted by the musical sounds and meanings of words and the silences in between them. Being nurtured in a devoutly religious but intensely artistic home his hauntings soon took the form of poetry. Despite his many academic degrees and varied professional careers, his poetry has survived as his primary personal calling. The author of fi ve previous books: “Burning Bush”1985, “Particles of Thought” 1988 (both University Flaming Arrow Press), “Ibis of Imaginings, a Poetic Diary” (Editorama Poesia 1995), Loom (TELAR) in 2005 and "Suite de La Habana" in 2006 both Edicions Union (UNEAC, Cuba) in which Otterstrom recounts a peculiar poetic odyssey, as he decided to abandon the security of his business career to return to an inner home which became Havana, Cuba to discover its importance to his destiny as poet.