"The Reservoir" Nominated for the Best of the Net 2017

The editors over at Vox Poetica just sent news that my poem "The Reservoir" is one of their six nominees for the 2017 edition of The Best of the Net. I'm happy to share this honor with Moriah LaChapell, Nancy Scott McBride, John J. McKenna, Mel Paisley, and Simon Perchik. Good luck to all, and thank you again to the editorial team at Vox Poetica! 

There Are Some Highways We'll Always Drive

I have this strange, displaced memory of driving up from the Texas coastline to San Antonio with my father in his old white Mercury Cougar in the mid-1990s. It’s typically a three hour drive across long stretches of remote and desolate flatlands, crossed by dried-up creek beds and small ranching towns, with occasional gas stations flung far and few apart. Closer to Corpus Christi there are cotton fields and twisted mazes of refineries, the flaming spires of which would light up the night if we left the coastal city after sundown.

But this time, in this ethereal memory, it’s a stormy-looking afternoon turning to dusk, and the storms might explain our early departure from the beach. The air conditioning feels cool and makes the salty sea air feel like a sticky paste clinging to my flesh as the AC dries it away. But what stands out most in this memory—aside from the fact that my father and I are alone; my sister is usually with us—is that we’re listening to a live broadcast of a Van Halen concert from some outlying Texas city, Houston or Dallas or somewhere.

I never really got into Van Halen. They felt kind of uncool by the time I got into music in the early 90s (I was too busy with REM, Nirvana, Beck, Weezer, etc.). My father was a casual fan and my aunt was a huge Sammy Hagar fan, but for some reason on this darkening trek north to escape incoming storm clouds, we’re excited to make this musical discovery and my father turns it up. I recognize most songs, to my surprise, and I recall thinking even then that it was weird how much I enjoyed the experience, sipping on my soda leftover from a Whataburger dinner.

I recall specifically looking at him as he drove, how I could see the setting sun fighting through layers of purple-black clouds blanketing the prairie treeline beyond his profile, the music playing, the miles ticking by. And then, just like that, it was night, and stray lights from small towns and lonely ranches dotted the horizon as Van Halen kept going, and going. I can't remember the year or anything else about that trip, but I remember feeling like my father and I would make that trip a million more times in my lifetime, but knowing even then that it would never feel quite the same as that one trip. 

And while we've been there since, a number of times, each time we go I worry it might be the last. We're both getting older, dodging medical mishaps and maladies as best we can. When the day comes though (and I hope it doesn't for a long long time) I truly fear the prospect of ever having to drive to Corpus Christi and the beach without my father behind the wheel. It wouldn't feel right stepping onto the sandy beach without him, eating at Snoopy's Pier without him, filling up the gas tank and heading north as night falls over the refinery lights without him. That random Van Halen concert stamped something permanent in my mind, the feeling that this has to go with that, that one thing can't exist without the other. Sometimes I dream of my father and I on that road at night, happy and tired and listening to music, and I want it to go on forever. It won't, but it will, at least until neither of us is here to remember that one drive home beneath the stormy night skies of Texas.   

Autumn Heals: Reflections on Moving Home, 2 Years Later

Driving through Rensselaer County, autumn 2015

Two years ago I moved back to the Albany area after spending years in NYC and beyond. I moved back for health, financial, and personal reasons, and I didn’t know what I’d expect of the area after being merely an occasional visitor for so long. In truth, the move left me feeling very lonely. I spent most of my time either with the dog, resting up in bed trying to get back on my feet, or driving through the countryside alone. It was autumn and I’d drive to orchards, buy apples and cider and donuts, and find remote cornfields or cemeteries or roadside creeks and sit and eat and contemplate. Most of my friends lived far away and I don’t always do a good job of reaching out to new people, so it was a quiet autumn, a beautiful one, with gorgeous foliage and all the time in the world to explore and re-discover the area. I look back on that time with a lot of fondness despite the powerful feelings of depression and uncertainty I felt at the time. I was not well, in a lot of ways, and I struggled, but something about having that season to myself embedded that period deep into my psyche. I feel it so much, every single autumn. It’s home, and this area really is perfect for experiencing the season between September through December, an eventful time of transition, but also one rich with solitude and reflection. A time of looking back mixed with preparations for what will come. It was also during this time I wrote some of the poems that make up my newest book, We Are All Terminal But This Exit Is Mine. The book references a lot of solitary exploration, autumn adventures, and wistful reflections, among deeper darker topics, and to have that book come out from Unknown Press in October, my favorite month, well…it just feels right. For all the sadness I’ve felt in this season, there’s goodness and peace as well. I hope this book shows that, and I hope you are able to get out and experience a little of the autumn season in the ways I’ve been able to over the years. It’s a magical healing thing, and we all deserve to be in a place like that from time to time.    

There Are No Rules: My Time Writing for Writer's Digest

A few years back I worked for Writer's Digest, serving as an editor in both their book and magazine divisions, and one thing I loved to do was write for their advice blog, “There Are No Rules.” Not that I’m some bestseller rife with literary wisdom, but I always felt we each have our own writing insights, tricks, and habits that are helpful to us and might be helpful to others. Besides, what writer doesn’t like writing about writing from time to time? A lot of my old blog posts are about breaking out of writing slumps, self-editing and revision, how watching Star Wars or Hitchcock’s Rear Window can help your writing, the best books to read during Halloween, advice on self publishing (a bit dated but still useful), and there’s interviews with writers, editors, and much more. Enjoy!

Piece By Piece: My New Column in The Blue Mountain Review

Every writer has been there. Whether it's burnout or writer's block, we all hit that wall where nothing seems to work, we can't finish anything, and great ideas die on the vine before they're ripe. I hit this wall a few times each year, but I've found little ways to work around (or through) that usually do the trick and get me back on track. I shared a few of these tips in my latest column, titled "Piece By Piece," for The Blue Mountain Review, Issue 8. Check out page 50 for my quarterly column. The issue is full of excellent poetry, prose, art, interviews, and a lot more, so it's definitely worth your time. My deepest thanks to Clifford Brooks and the staff at The Blue Mountain Review for including me yet again.  

"Feral Kingdom" now appears in Picaroon Poetry #9

My new poem "Feral Kingdom" now appears in Picaroon Poetry Issue 9 (on page 19, click on the cover toward the bottom of the page to open the PDF of the issue) alongside a veritable pirate crew of dastardly poets, such as Tobi Alfier, Amber Decker, Darren C. Demaree, Robert Okaji, Howie Good, and more. My poem takes a look at a life spent living out of boxes, on the move, dependent on kindness, luck, and every penny one can scrape together. It's not an easy life, it's not always even a good life, and it's the kind of life that flies by a little too fast if you ask me. I hope you enjoy it. The issue is downloadable as a PDF, or you can flip through and read it online. My deepest thanks to the editor, Kate Garrett, for accepting my work! (She also took another poem of mine for an issue due in November.) And thank you out there for reading. I always appreciate it.   

Rusted Ghosts of Sidewalk Town

My poem "Rusted Ghosts of Sidewalk Town" now appears at Windedrunk Sidewalk: Shipwrecked in Trumpland, an assemblage of poems about our modern life during the 45th presidency. This particular poems reflects on the unspoken hopes of the homeless, the steel-hearted indifference of our lovely modern age, the hollow men and women who run the show, and the shattered windows, empty shoes, and racist graffiti that trails in their wake. I hope you'll read with an open mind and an open heart. Thanks, and please consider sending them your own work!