Hi, I'm Dan. Most evenings at sunset and in its afterglow when not preempted by some pesky obligation, I sit at our west window watching the daily "sunset movie" (a different showing each night), headphones in place, listening to music chosen to complement my mood, a glass of decent cabernet near at hand. The plot is predictable, but the cinematography is gorgeous.

Immersed in this multi-sensory beauty, I watch my mind, curious to see where it goes and what it does, undirected by purposeful intent, often revealing what has been lurking in the shadows of my awareness.

I call this my "sweet hour of (secular) prayer."

While reposed in this altered mental state, my muse sometimes drops in for a visit. She suggests a potent metaphor or artful phrase to convey a budding idea or sentiment. I focus her attention on that green shoot, hoping to cultivate its embryonic words and harvest them before they wither in the waning sunset, out of memory's slipping grasp, lost forever down the wormhole to some other universe. Sometimes, those doughy words can be kneaded into the shape of a haiku quintet.

The works published by Five Palms Press are products of those sunset musings.

View pre-publication haiku quintets before they are publicly available, often while still being edited, marinated, incubated, and otherwise hammered into shape.

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Current Titles - Reader reviews
Please rate and review each book you read.

¤ Coming soon: Diary of a Young Man: 1968-1969: Coming of Age at a Cultural Crossroads — prepublication review copy — synopsis

¤ Coming soon: Love, Death, and Atheism: Haiku Quintets — synopsis — preface

¤ Coming in 2025: A Life Mostly Lived: Continued — synopsis — preface

¤ A Life Mostly Lived: True Stories in 85 Syllables at Amazon (e-book, hardcover, paperback) — cover notes — how to write your own memoir

¤ Haiku Quintets at Amazon (e-book, paperback) — review copy — e-book also at Smashwords and Goodreads

¤ Songs of the Pandemic — review copy — e-book, paperback, and hardcover at Amazon — ebook also at Goodreads and Smashwords

¤ Common Ground: Haiku, Mediation, and Police Reform — Amazon and Goodreads

¤ Resisting Trumpism: Haiku Quintets — Amazon and Goodreads

¤ Science and Secularism: Haiku Quintets and Other Musings — Smashwords — Amazon — Goodreads

¤ The Reason Revolution: Atheism, Secular Humanism, and the Collapse of Religion — free at Amazon and Goodreads and Smashwords (PDF option at Smashwords).

¤ Life Is Not Good: Antinatalism in Haiku — at Amazon (e-book and paperback) — Goodreads (e-book and paperback) — Smashwords (e-book) — review copy — synopsis — back cover — podcast interview

Pre-retirement writing:

¤ Conflict Resolution (McGraw-Hill) — paperback and Kindle

¤ Managing Differences: How to Build Better Relationships at Work and Home (MTI at Eckerd College) — new print and e-book editions pending

A Life Mostly Lived

"Dan Dana does something wondrous and wholly unique in his memoir in verse. He tells readers many of the high points of his life, learning, travel, and adventures in an original construction of what he calls "haiku quintets" — which are poems of five stanzas, with each stanza a 5-7-5 syllable haiku. This is a tight construction, requiring a certain wizardry with words. Yet he handles it all adeptly, choosing the perfect word time after time to regale readers with his life's journey from his home place on a Missouri farm to Vietnam to Woodstock and beyond, with extensive world travels and a distinguished career — and a wife and family he clearly cherishes. The care and deliberateness of his writing adds a whole new layer to the concept of a memoir, as does his philosophy. All in all, this is a collection to relish, and one which can be read and savored slowly or devoured all at once — or both."

— Claire Matturo, author of The Smuggler's Daughter

"The author has given readers the spark to undertake our own life journeys all over again by setting down our own stories. How many of us wish our own parents, grandparents and great grandparents had taken the time to do so."

— Martin Collins, author of Red Tide Crash

"Dan Dana set out to chronicle his life in a series of poems, each comprised of five haikus, and supplemented by evocative photographs. The result is a remarkable composite of an American life, which stands out for its erudition, compassion, and intimacy. You will enjoy the personal moments, the commentary on Midwestern beginnings, and the more recent parts of the book as well, which touch on contemporary themes. There is something for all of us here. The Haiku is a medium that is usually employed aphoristically, but here, it is modified to serve the biographer, with results that are highly readable, sometimes amusing, sometimes touching, and never boring.

— Arvind Rajan, PhD

"What a crazy way to write your life story. Haiku! But it works. Instead of pages and pages, here you get concentrated experiences and concentrated emotions. Easy 5 stars."

— Ernest Kinnie, PhD, author of Amoral Science and Brainless Religion: Incompatible or Complementary?

Haiku Quintets

"This is a special book, full of warmth and insights and wisdom, and some humor. Many of the haiku are personal, and several are topical, but all show a poet with great sensitivity to the human condition and to the sounds of language. The sweetest ones are for Susan. Well done, and a book to treasure."

— Claire Matturo, author of The Smuggler's Daughter

"I always believed the only proof that humans were capable of spirituality was Beethoven. Another was Chopin's objection to a listener's comparison of his Prelude 28 to raindrops by saying, 'No, my creation has no relation to the natural world.' Now 200 years later, Dan Dana's poetry shows us that everyday routine experiences can have spiritual value."

— Rich Goscicki, author of Saving Gaia: Introduction to Rational Darwinism

"Dan Dana distills his "musings" — floating widely in the universe — into precious poetic gems that encapsulate an array of issues of personal identity, group psychology, modern physics, and philosophy of life, each reverberating with numerous associations yet remaining coherent."

— Jay Y. Gonen, PhD, author of The Roots of Nazi Psychology: Hitler's Utopian Barbarism

"Dan is a good friend. One of the reasons for the friendship is the Dan that lives in his haiku. They evoke the sensitivity and wisdom he gathered over a lifetime of watching, feeling and thinking. If you are a sensitive, caring and thoughtful person, buy the book. You will have many wonderful moments."

— Ernest Kinnie, PhD, author of Amoral Science and Brainless Religion: Incompatible or Complementary?

Common Ground: Haiku, Mediation, and Police Reform

"Poetry is not just a way of recognizing or describing the world. At a deeper level, it is a way of experiencing and creating it, of making visible the hidden energy that drives it, of bringing it into existence. Dan Dana's book of haiku (Common Ground) seeks to build a better world, the world of mediation, of conflict resolution and the promise and brilliance that can only be captured through poetry."

— Ken Cloke, author of Mediating Dangerously and The Dance of Opposites

"This book is timely for peace officer training. Your weaving of haiku within the text is a novel strategy to gain reader insight and comprehension. The best part of police cohort training is they come to class, listen, and immediately apply to daily work."

— W. Bruce Newman, Assistant Director of Employee Relations, New York Department of Labor (retired)

"The book 'Common Ground' is a must-read for those debating and discussing police reform. As a community policing specialist and hostage and crisis negotiator myself, I strongly endorse the ideas in this book, and would recommend it to anyone wishing to learn the purposeful use of mediation in a world of ever-growing conflict."

— Anish Quenim, Community Policing Hostage and Crisis Negotiator, Researcher and Faculty, Goa, India

Science and Secularism

"Science and Secularism is a journey. The logic is sound. To those who, like me, have not grown up in a religious milieu, and who've not had to 'escape' from a religious upbringing, this seems a bit of a sledgehammer to crack a nut. A thoughtful gift for friends who are wrestling with the contradictions between alternative world views — religious and non-religious."

— C. L. Spillard, physicist and author of The Evening Lands. See her extensive review here.

The Reason Revolution

"A short thoughtful and cogent volume discussing why the alternatives to religious belief simply make more sense in the modern world. I would recommend this for all readers, particularly those who are new to these discussions, for guidance and motivation. Well done!"

— Lawrence M. Krauss, Foundation Professor in the School of Earth and Space Exploration, and Director of the Origins Project at Arizona State University, and author of numerous bestselling books including The Physics of Star Trek and A Universe from Nothing

"Religious people may not read Dawkins, Harris or Hitchens, but they might read Dana. His nine 'reasons for skepticism' are an excellent basis for discussions with religious friends, especially Reason #4: The Accidental Human Population."

— Dr. Darrel Ray, author of The God Virus, and Sex and God, founder of Recovering from Religion

"Short, sweet, provocative: a trifecta of characteristics that promote humanism and give even us theists reasons to pause and reflect. Dana's work is a great starter for conversations between people of differing views on that ultimate philosophical/theological question: why does anything exist at all? Keep writing, Mr. Dana."

— Barry Lynn, Executive Director, Americans United for Separation of Church and State

"Dan Dana's work, The Reason Revolution, is a cogent plea for sensible humanistic skepticism and sounder education of the public regarding scientifically demonstrable realities. He shows how indoctrination into various forms of mythic nonsense has led to inexcusably inhuman abuses, and he warns against the intrusion of superstition into government policies. His thirteen 'hopeful predictions' for a better world, free of the intellectual tyranny of religion, are well worth adopting as a recipe for an improved future."

— Barbara G. Walker, author of Man Made God, The Skeptical Feminist, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets, and 21 other books

"This is the kind of handy, short book needed in the atheist movement, a go-to resource for those who want a better understanding of atheism, secularism, etc."

— Dan Arel, author of Parenting Without God

"In The Reason Revolution, psychologist Dan Dana lays out a clear and concise introduction to scientifically oriented secular humanism as a compelling worldview. He boldly predicts the growth of present trends toward secularism and points the way to a brighter future for humanity. When you feel your hope eroding at the latest depressing news of religious terrorism or conflict, read this book."

— Dr. John C. Wathey, computational biologist and author of The Illusion of God's Presence: The Biological Origins of Spiritual Longing.

"Dan Dana's Reason Revolution is masterful. It conveys the imperative that it's finally time to replace religious thinking with science, and does so in a respectful way that doesn't insult believers. It's a short read and worth every minute of your time."

— Barry Zack, author of Jewish Lightning.

Life Is Not Good: Ethical Antinatalism in Haiku

Reading this book was quick, thinking about it took some time. Discomforting questions are the subject of Dan Dana's challenging and thought-provoking new book, Life Is Not Good: Ethical Antinatalism in Haiku. For those who have broken free of religious thinking, reality is complicated, and difficult ethical problems must be faced. Most secular humanists will accept this. Dana concludes with a sensible list of suggestions along those lines. Life Is Not Good expands that ethical understanding, and reading it will surely stretch your mind.

— John C. Wathey, PhD, author of The Phantom God: What Neuroscience Reveals about the Compulsion to Believe

Dan Dana has pulled off an astonishing feat. He proposes the unconventional (albeit not completely new) thesis that producing more children is morally wrong, at both the societal and the individual level. He makes this argument using means that are unconventional as well - a combination of essays and Haikus! Whether you agree with the thesis or not, the book makes for a quick and fascinating read. The haikus especially are lyrical and embody poetry in its most distilled sense. Some of the haikus got under my skin in a way that the prose never could. Well worth a read, and well worth our time to ponder this question so fundamental that it strikes at the very heart of human existence.

— Arvind Rajan, PhD

The biologist side of me loves the rational evolutionary commentary. My creative side loves the haiku, the words.

— Karen O'Malia, MS, coauthor/photographer of Conditions

All content © 2020 by Dan Dana