It takes just one to change the world

"…If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams,
and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined,
he will meet with success unexpected in common hours."
-- Henry David Thoreau

Judging from the title of his book it would be easy to confuse Eric Chaet as just another admirer of On The Road. This is not so. Kerouac's drug-infused travelogue taught a generation how to be hip, but Eric Chaet is not hip. Unlike Kerouac's loping, stream-of-consciousness free-for-alls Chaet's prose is precise and message-driven.

If comparisons need be made then Mr. Chaet's closest American literary counterpart would be Henry David Thoreau. Both authors are nature-focused individualists who wish to improve their interior as well as exterior worlds. Neither can be contained by a single label nor desire to be.

Chaet's mission statement is simple: change the world. He's even written a type of "manual" on how to do exactly that entitled How to Change the World Forever for Better. The author himself has tried several methods of achieving this goal from teaching Navajo students math, to hitchhiking across America's sunbelt, to Civic Action. Chaet has answered Thoreau's call for direct action when he declared for all citizens to "vote with our arms, with our legs, with our feet, with our whole bodies."

As a poet, essayist, short storyist, and raconteur Chaet has many tools in his tool chest. His literary voice is one of inimitable populism. His poems read like meditations from a world-weathered bookworm, and his short stories are typically first person vignettes of modest workers, flawed but brimming with potential.

To find out more about this artist listen to his July 27, 2008 interview, and for a sample of his writing visit his website "Eat Some, Plant Some". If you enjoy his work drop him a line and let him know you want to change the world forever for better too.


Eric Chaet interview on The Jane Crown Show
Eat Some, Plant Some
People I met Hitchhiking on USA Highways