Two Poems in New Dreamscape Anthology

Open Skies Quarterly is a print and digital journal that recently teamed up with Shrouded Eye Press to create a series of anthologies, and their most recent is called Dreamscape, in which all poetry touches on the themes of dreams, nightmares, daydreams, etc. The collection includes two of my poems, “The Ghosts of Flat Tires and Dead Flowers” and “The Cold Northern Edge of Your Rope.” The latter is somewhat apocalyptic and political while also being one of the more calming and peaceful poems I’ve written in a while. The former is about daydreaming in my living room and appears in my latest book, Beyond the Wounded Horizon, a split collection with J Lester Allen. You can download the Dreamscapes Anthology for free, or purchase a copy in print form. Thanks for reading!

"Bereave" in Up The Staircase Quarterly # 50

I have had the great privilege of placing work in numerous issues of Up The Staircase Quarterly over the years, and they remain not just one of my favorite literary journals, but one of the best journals online. They actively seek out diverse voices, fresh talent, and their website is always clean, organized, and beautifully supported by a rotation of new art and photography, and showing up in their 50th edition is a true honor. I’m also excited that my poem “Bereave” appears next to writers I greatly admire, including Rachel Nix, Emily Blair, Kate Wright, Rasaq Malik, and others. Thanks for taking a look, and for all of your support over the years!

"Derelict" in Redshift 4 Anthology

My poem “Derelict” now appears in the fourth edition of the Redshift anthology, published by Arroyo Seco Press. The publisher, Thomas R. Thomas, teamed up with guest editor and prolific L.A. poet Kevin Ridgeway to sift through all the submissions to put together the final lineup, which features an absolute landslide of fantastic poets, including a bunch I previously published in Hobo Camp Review. It was great to see so many familiar names, such as Rob Plath, John Dorsey, Wendy Rainey, Jennifer Lemming, Gabriel Ricard, Jason Ryberg, Jeanette Powers, Alexis Rhone Fancher, John Grochalski, William Taylor, Jr., and many many others. I had a great time reading through and seeing the works of so many writer aquaintences I admire, and I highly entourage you to give this collective a shot. The anthology is now available online. Thanks!

Coming Soon: Beyond the Wounded Horizon

Our impending split-book of poetry Beyond the Wounded Horizon, co-authored by myself and J Lester Allen, is important to me on so many levels. Not only does this collection contain some of my absolute favorites of our work, but I have wanted to publish Lester (as many of us knew him way back when) for years, ever since he worked so hard on my 2009 release Maybe A Bird Will Sing through his then publishing house Bird War Press. He added so many wonderful details to the now out-of-print book: special bands to hold together the bundles of saddle-stitched copies, bookmarks, stylized watermark art on the cover and back. I was so impressed and so grateful, and it feels like I fulfilled a bucket list item by attempting to return the favor in some small way with Beyond the Wounded Horizon, which should drop in early summer.

We met back in those heady days of MySpace when it felt like artists and poets could connect with so much more openness and ease, mostly because all our pages came with blogs, readily stocked with new work we could browse as we got to know each other. I met so many writers in that period that I still communicate with daily and weekly, but the camaraderie and connection I made with Joe (as many of us know him by these days) felt different. Even though we didn’t speak as often as I did with other writer friends, getting to catch up over a quick chat, a phone call, a beer at his place or on the road, it felt like talking to an old friend from another life, someone I didn’t need to impress or entertain, and each conversation was a comfort.

Some of the poems in this book speak to those moments of ease and fun (the cover photo is even from our first hangout at Bleecker Street Bar in NYC), and many more speak to that whole era of life when he and I were on the move, crossing the country on separate journeys, zig-zagging bars and highways all through California, Texas, NYC, the Midwest, and the small towns of Pennsylvania and western New York state. Some of the poems come from that chapbook of mine Joe published, and some come from a chap he released back in 2010 as well. But many poems are new, many are reflective, and there are poems that show where our separate journeys have taken us, to somewhat steadier lives where work and love and peace are still punctured by strangeness, by nights of music and nostalgia, and by an eagerness for more, more of the lives we left behind along those dark highways, but also more of the quiet goodness we’ve found along the way.

And we’re not finished, not in any sense, but I admit that this book is one I would be proud to leave as a capstone, a collection that combines the past and the present in such a meaningful way. But I’m sure it’s not the end. The itch to write, to hit the road, and to track down friends for another neon race through the bars and diners of some distant city will call once again, someday, but for now I’m very proud to offer you all this book of new and selected poetry, one we wrote in honor of those old days of burgeoning friendships and madness, and one that tips the hat to the many more nights of wonder to come. Thanks for all of your support over the years, and we hope you enjoy this book.

A Bookshop Tour of Southern Vermont

It feels like a hundred years since the “Before Times” when I could travel around and hunt for bookshops, and Vermont has always been one of my favorite places to do that. My latest Bookshop Hunting column, “A Tour of Southern Vermont,” explores that region and is now up at AlbanyPoets.com, a fantastic literary website that covers upstate NY, the Capital District, and surrounding areas. I typically write these columns about one trip that spans a few bookshops, but this one is a culmination of many trips over a few years, and if I happened to have missed a new (or old!) shop along the way, I’d love to know! Thanks as always for reading, and please keep supporting your local indie bookshops during this pandemic!

New Poem in the Spring Issue of Black Coffee Review

My poem “Phone Booth in Tujunga, CA” now appears in the Spring Issue of Black Coffee Review, alongside some excellent poets like Kevin Ridgeway, Alexis Rhone Fancher, Bunkong Tuon, Julianne King, and Alan Catlin, and many others. My thanks to David Taylor for accepting the piece and putting this issue together.

This poem is a throwback about a visit to California in my mid-20s, and the piece also appears in one of my recent poetry collections, Feral Kingdom (Kung Fu Treachery Press), which includes a number of poems from the last ten years or so that have to do with the time spent between “lives,” the gulf between those places and periods where things feel settled…until they’re not again. The book is available for $15 and supports not just myself but a great small press. I hope you enjoy, and thanks for reading this poem!