Hi John, thank you for the thoughtful note and nice to meet you. Voice is really your personal style, your language, your themes developed by spending too many hours reading others. I shifted from writing nonfiction business stuff about a decade ago as I got along further down the path, and my first poetic hero, besides Frost, who I still pick up and read weekly, was Charles Bukowski. I read endlessly from his books and when I look back to my earliest writings, I tried too hard to imitate him, his voice, his style, and it was horrible. The virus took me off the travel circuit, about 22 weeks a year, and I went back to graduate school again to study creative writing/poetry. The more I read and studied, the more I found I liked, didn't like, thought it was great but not me and eventually started to find my voice, saying it with my words and my style. I even worked with a writing coach for almost a year to shred my stuff and help me find myself instead of trying to imitate. it takes time John, and maybe Billy Collins is write, it might take 10,000 hours of reading before you find yourself, but I keep looking because I know I am in here somewhere if I just keep reading and practicing every day. Thank you again John, and I hope to read your work soon. Thom