About John W. Leys

John W. Leys is an indie-poet who been writing poetry since he was 14 years old, inspired by the words of John Lennon and Bob Dylan. His major poetic influences include Allen Ginsberg, Walt Whitman, Lord Byron, Erica Jong, Arthur Rimbaud, Sylvia Plath, Taliesin, the Poetic Edda, Catullus, Sappho, Ted Hughes, Leonard Cohen, George Harrison, John Milton, and Bob Dylan.

John was born on Long Island, New York and raised in Albany, Oregon. He served five years in the U.S. Army as a personnel clerk, received a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Religious Studies from the University of South Florida in Tampa and studied for his master's degree in Judaic Studies at the Graduate School of the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. He currently lives in Redmond, Oregon with his wife Justine, their son Tristyn, three dogs, and two cats.

He has had poetry published in Omnibus, the University of South Florida's literary journal, Byronmania, a now defunct on-line journal dedicated to Lord Byron, and Nicholas Gagnier's All the Lonely People. He has also contributed to a variety of poetry-blogs, including Blood Into Ink, GoDogGo Café, and Free Verse Revolution. His work can primarily be found on his own blog Darkness of His Dreams.