Welcome to the Society of Wet Poets and Artists. This collection of poems, art
and photography, all done by swimmers, is not just unique, but a mirror of the
depth of creativity that swimmers have expressed from a wet world that many
have enjoyed over many centuries. Many writers over the ages have expressed
eloquently the beauty and magic, as well as tragedy, that water has held for man-
kind. But never has there been collected work all done by swimmers and not land-
lubbers. As a life-long swimmer myself, I have often written poems about my inner
feelings from various swims, and after sharing a second poem with Lynne Cox
[page 50], she called me a wet poet! A few months later, a light bulb went off in my
head and I conceived the idea of a Wet Poets’ Society: thus this book was born.
Knowing personally many of my fellow South End Rowing Club, San Francisco,
swimming friends, I canvassed them for poems or images and many came. Adding
to this richness of material was my access to the Sunrisers’ history of e-mails going
back to 1999, when there was a lively exchange of our morning swimming experi-
ences in poetical forms. Word spread and I found many contributors from our neigh-
bors at the Dolphin Club. A treasure trove of works began to accumulate and then
I went on line and asked for contributions from a broader audience on the English
Channel Smart Groups. I was impressed by the wide variety of poems submitted.
A tapestry began to take shape. It captured individual, diverse experiences of swim-
ming in a pool, wide-open-waters like the English or Catalina Channels, or the San
Francisco Bay. The internet made this project feasible!

        In passing, it may be of interest to note that the San Francisco Bay Area and
the Pacific Masters zone is home for nearly 25% of all registered masters swimmers
in the United States; there is lots of creative talent both in and out of the water.
The Bay Area is one of the premier open-water swimming areas; although there
are other places that offer good workouts and a community of warm and friendly
people, including La Jolla Cove near San Diego, The Serpentine in London, the
Forty Foot outside Dublin, and some swimming places in Australia, just a few
of the many little swimming communities that have open-water swims whereever
there are swimmers and water. Both the Dolphin and South End Clubs
offer hot showers and a warm sauna for those colder winter months when the
waters do get cold.

        There are many stories behind some of these poems. The poem by Pavla
Podolska [page 124] about her swimming the Golden Gate in 1975 is really a mark
of history. At that time women were not allowed to participate in major swims
such as swimming across the Gate. Pavla and a few of her lady friends crashed the
barrier and swam it, thus paving the way for women to participate in long open-
water swims as equals. A lovely story is that of Lynne Cox [page 50], Gabe Rosen
[page 132], and Professor John Ridland [page 128]. Lynne had been a student of
John’s at the College of Creative Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara
in the late 1970’s where he encouraged her to write. Gabe had been another
student of John’s in 2000-01 and credits him for encouraging him to return to
writing in his original voice. Several poems are of two swimmers meeting in
the water and sharing their sweet love poems to each other. And there is the
long poem by Buck Delventhal [page 55] who had a near-death experience one
morning swimming in the cove at San Francisco’s Aquatic Park and wrote about
it! The wonderful image of Pedro Ordenes [page 117] swimming with the black-
and-white dolphins, the tuninas, in the Straits of Magellan in the southern cold
waters of Chile is a swimmer’s dream. More than thirty years after graduating
from Flintridge Preparatory School for Boys, California, Stan Morner [page 110]
and I rediscovered each other at a Masters Swimming competition at Santa
Cruz, only later to be joined at a poetry reading with John Ridland, a graduate
from the same high school. Of course, it should be noted that two of the world’s
greatest open-water swimmers, Lynne Cox and Alison Streeter [page 142] have
contributed poems capturing their feelings of being out in the big open-waters of
the world’s oceans. My brother, Barney Miller, [page 102] who lives in London,
also submitted a poem! There is a great diversity of writing styles, but unique to
each poem is the revelation of what the water does to make us write which is now
captured in this book. It all gets revealed, including what the water inspires, in-
cluding one swimmer’s experience in her bathtub!

    I would like to thank each and every contributor who has helped make
this anthology what it is, particularly B. J. Cates, Roy Massen, Stan Morner,
John Ridland, Sherry Sheehan, and Connie Wellen. If there are any profits from the
sale of this book, donations will be made to organizations that support swimming
or help increase public awareness of the need to stop polluting the waters in
which we swim, like the Hudson River in New York. So welcome to the world
of water, as these poems and images transport the reader to a special watery
place swimmers experience in the great mother of all mothers.