Southwind is a collection that is more than two decades in the making as the section entitled "1993" was written while the poet was an undergraduate studying chemistry and living on campus as a sophomore. Engrossed in the whirlwind of his first romance and listening to a peculiar style of jazz music, he found his muse for the first time. The combination of stresses from self-supporting his educational endeavors while trying to study rigorous courses, and navigating the precariousness of this, his first, romantic relationship created the duende he refers to in many of his other collections of poems.