just passing through: poems

by Christopher Phillips

Between 1991 and 1996, Christopher Phillips, founder of the renowned global Socrates Café initiative (SocratesCafe.com) and author of the international bestseller Socrates A Fresh Taste of Philosophy, among other acclaimed works, was buffeted by professional setback, reversal and grievous personal loss. It prompted Phillips to embark on a search for a way of human being, doing, and making that would make his life more worth living, and if it came to it, more worth dying for. His introspective and at times wrenching journey of discovery included an intensive outpouring of short fiction and, most of all, poetry. This collection of 34 poems, many of which found homes in some of the eminent avant-garde and university-based literary journals of that time, stems from that pivotal crossroads in his life and his decision ultimately to launch Socrates Café. just passing through provides a rather quirky yet piercing lens into Phillips' quest for identity, purpose and meaning at a time of uncertainty and upheaval. This collection of poems serves in telling respects as an imaginative and existential bridge Phillips had to cross to go on and become the person Public Radio International lauded as the world's "Johnny Appleseed of Philosophy" and that Dr. Cornel West, the most towering public intellectual of our day, extols today as "the greatest living embodiment of the Socratic spirit in our catastrophic times."

47 pages, Kindle Edition

Published July 28, 2021

About the author

Christopher Phillips is Professor of History and Department Head at the University of Cincinnati.

Reviews

[Dan Gobble · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Kindle version I purchased from Amazon was a barely legible, scanned-in copy in which words and letters appeared to blur together. I think I puzzled out most the poems, but I'm definitely disappointed in the poor copy as it was presented for the Kindle.