Lafave John

Article by Erika Glasberg
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February 8, 2011

Ingleside - Writing poems as been a life-long passion for John Lafave and now, he is able to share his passion internationally as his first book of poetry has just been published.

Lafave has been writing inspirational poems in the country gospel and old country style for about 40 years. "My wife and I used to go around to different nursing homes and entertain the senior citizens,'' said the 68 year-old Lafave, who recently celebrated his 40th anniversary with his wife.

Lafave doesn't entirely believe that writing can be taught as inspiration to write comes at no specific time or place. "I believe it's a gift,'' he continued. "I'll sit down and when I start, I won't know what to put into it. Sometimes it will take 20 minutes to write, other times it can take a day.''

After various attempts at selling his poetry as music lyrics, Lafave decided that he would try to publish some of his work as well. "I tried to see if people wanted to pick (the poems) up for music and then I thought why not put in a manuscript and see what happens."

Just two weeks after sending his manuscripts out to Publish America, he was pleased to find out that he had been accepted to be published. The book is entitled Perhaps Today. "It's more than I had expected from just being sent on a whim,'' he said.

The book's cover was created by the company and in print after a month of receiving the manuscripts and Lafave filling out the required paperwork.
The book will be sold for $25 on both American and Canadian Amazon websites as well as & Noble and even as far as the UK and Australia. It has 57 poems, which range from a military storyline to a poem about the ice storm in 1998.

Of course, a local writer couldn't possibly have a book published and not sold locally. Perhaps Today can be found at Angels Gifts from the Heart on Pitt Street. I don't know about publishing another book but I will keep writing poems,'' he said.