NYC friends! @s.a.borland and I will be part of the Queer Poetry Marathon Saturday, May 9, with the @rainbowbookfair - We’ll be featured in the 3:00 PM time slot. We’d love to read you poems!
The CENTER
208 W 13th Street
New York, NY 10011
What a fun, empowering night at The Publishing Triangle Awards! C. Dale, Rajiv, and I lost together at the Lammies in 2017 and nine years later we did it again. I couldn’t lose in better company, and to the legendary Richard Siken, no less. To be in a room full of heroes and friends did my heart good. Much love, too, to NYC, my favorite city in the world and the place I feel most myself and most at home.
Okay, let me try to say something coherent.
I wrote Brotherful over a ten-year period, and it aged and evolved as I aged and evolved. Grief never leaves, but the view changes based on where you stand, even if you look at the same empty chair.
Brotherful is the book of which I’m most proud. It is most fully me. It is my heart. I couldn’t even think of publishing it anywhere but @siblingrivalrypress - an early poem is called “Sibling Rivalry.”
So, to be listed next to these writers I love, and these publishers I respect, makes me feel like my chest is bursting light from the inside out.
The late Jim Harrison was perhaps the biggest influence on this book. It’s not lost on me his publisher @copper_canyon_press is included here.
Ghosts and angels and birds are everywhere.
STATIONS
11 billion dollars for the first week of war
while the few men we allow real power
in this world keep fucking it up.
With every border I’ve crossed
or dreamed of crossing, I meet more
people who simply want to survive.
Across the street there once was
an American flag. Now there is
a line for food.
The soft morning light moves
from face to face. Day comes
until it doesn’t.
We wake until we don’t.
