Poet / Writer
Poet / Writer
To the poet, the human community is like the community of birds to a bird, singing to each other.
Love is one of the reasons we are singing to one another, love of language itself,
love of sound, love of singing itself, and love of the other birds.
— Sharon Olds
In seventh grade, I stumbled across Sylvia Plath’s Ariel in the school library. I was too young to fully understand the existential grapplings heavy in her poems, but I knew that those poems said something in what they didn’t say. That presence of absence is, I think, what primarily draws me to poetry — the reading and writing of it. And what inspires me again and again, as a maker of language-art, is that I can, with the very same medium I use to order a pizza, attempt to craft an expression — from words, sounds, and silence — that precisely resonates some smidge of this incredible experiment in being human.
Poems
“The Way Back” / “N – Nitrogen 7” / “Face” (video)
“Dorothy Gale: The Post-Oz Years”
“Two Takes After Russell Edson”
Articles
“A Poem Is Not a Podium: Writing the Political” for Trish Hopkinson‘s blog
“From What to How: Valuing the Reader’s Experience in Our Poems” for Trish Hopkinson‘s blog
Rain Taxi book review of Sage Cohen’s The Productive Writer
Rain Taxi poetry book review of Teresa Leo’s The Halo Rule
Rain Taxi poetry book review of Jeffrey Ethan Lee’s Invisible Sister
Speaking / Presenting / Art Exhibits
MASH: Beer-&-Poem Pairings YouTube channel
BARK & BARD: Reading Poems to Dogs YouTube channel
Storytellers Project, “Love and Heartbreak,” 2/20/19
Pecha Kucha presentation “How a Poem Happens,” 10/15/15
Longmont Times-Call article about poem-and-booze pairings, 4/25/16
“Love You Longmont” episode, on Longmont Channel 8, about “What Unfolds” exhibit at Arts Longmont Gallery, 3/14/17
(I show up at ~13 minutes, then later at 23:13, then they cut to another person for a smidge, then I finish the video.)
Longmont Times-Call article about “What Unfolds” exhibit, with photo of my piece, 3/16/17
Stand-Up Comedy
“The Big Funny” culminating performance in Kristina Hall’s “Stand Up! The Workshop”
I conduct one-on-one poetry consultations by phone, by email, and in person.
Poet but don’t know it? Contact me
Though the poetry publishing biz ain’t my favorite game, I hope to put out a print volume of poems in my lifetime. Until then, I have a CD of 21 poems, written between 1998 and 2002 — some the stuff of a beginning poet, some pretty enduring — and all yours for a ten-spot, plus S&H.
Vital Source review of notspeak
Good poetry cheap? Contact me