Nathan is a poet, not a biographer.

If his writing has a theme, it is to contradict almost everything he was taught growing up. He believes that poems make better homes for people than buildings do. However, he acknowledges that belief could be the result of growing up in a conservative church with walls that were strictly right angles, while his fingerprints are distinctly wavy and uneven.

In grade one, Nathan pressed his thumb to a blue ink pad then transferred himself to a white-capped piece of paper and saw the ocean for the first time. Perhaps that explains why he tries to write poems that are comforting in the way that storm watching can make a difficult life feel less lonely.

Nathan rarely leaves the house without an internal dialogue about the substantial advantages of wearing a hoodie because it’s the closest thing he’s found to a turtle shell. But he is trying to poke his head out a little more often to write and share poems as a way of staying connected to himself and to the world.