Paul Cunningham

"to forge a suit of armor to roll to crease to fold to identify only as weight as equilibrium as Poet" I have a new poem in @ritualdaggerzine : "Poet of Iron" - inspired by Richard Serra's famous verbs. It's also an excerpt from my unpublished collection STRONGHOLD. ritualdagger.neocities.org/zine

I'm reading in Chicago's "Free Stuff Reading Series" later this May with @lgnbrry (author of 'Doom is the House Without a Door') and Belle Adriatico. If you'd like to attend, you can email Olivia Cronk for the details.

I've watched the trailer for the new #ResidentEvil too many times. It's weird to think about how both #ZachCregger and #JordanPeele — who both have deep roots in comedy — are now two of today's most lauded and ingenious horror filmmakers. As someone who has always had a profound appreciation for #comedy — standup comedy, sketch comedy, improv — I think there's someting intensely important about comedy. Something existential. For a comedian, perhaps *nothing* is off-limits. And maybe this is what makes a great writer of #horror. Maybe the two genres have more in common than one might think. To quote the late Joan Rivers: "If you can laugh at it, you can deal with it"

Scenes from the excellent @thetexasreview event that happened in #NOLA this past Saturday at @allways_cabaret_club ! Grateful thanks to @debeauvoirbot and @katiejeanshinkle for your love and continued support 💖🙏

Under the @cloudwalkingcoffee fig with @caconrad88 💚😊🦉✨️

AND my great morning was followed by a great evening with poets @xaviercavazosnuyo and Karla Yaritza Maravilla Zaragoza! Hosted by @_notredamewritingmfa and @letraslatinasblog2 "A border within / a border, checking the citizenship of Americans traveling through / America and checking for illegal aliens hiding in the tires and gas tanks. / Aliens! Claro que sí in an episode of Mork / & Mindy but in gas tanks? Aliens? That's not my language, / but I found those terms / in US immigration law. You can tell a lot about a society / from their public documents" -from THE DEVIL'S WORKSHOP (available from @csupoetrycenter )

I had a lovely morning with my friend @caconrad88 in South Bend! While it's currently out of stock, I highly recommend SIN BUG! There will be another printing in the future. It combines essay, memoir, and CA's signature (Soma)tic rituals. SIN BUG documents "the pervasive homophobic violence of the 1980s and the overwhelming losses of AIDS." I'm so very moved by this book: "I apologized for having no answers on how to stop the hyper-militarised racist police on the streets of America while the racist US military is on the streets of Arab nations. I apologized for paying taxes that purchase the bullets, bombs, and drones. I apologized for not convincing my queer sisters and brothers that repealing Don't Ask, Don't Tell was only putting a sympathetic face on a multitrillion-dollar military-industrial complex. I apologized for not finding a way to protect Chelsea Manning. I apologized for many things for a long while then covered the hole holding my offerings and took more notes for my poem [...] we will figure / it out my friend / the ocean is / never far / when you feel / your pulse" They also invited me to draw a card from their tarot deck, and I'm suddenly feeling the urge to write something unlike ANYTHING I've ever written before... Feeling so heartened by my indelible poet-comrade during these dark, dark days!! 💚

Excited for @neworleanspoetry next week! I'm giving several readings between Thursday and Sunday, and I'll be reading from my latest book, #Brillo (@lavender.ink.dialogos ). Hope to see you there!

The second full-length poetry collection from @stevehalle77 is now available to purchase from @velizbooks and @asterism_books . Very happy to have contributed a blurb to this fearquake hungerquake of a book! COW STOMACH AND MOTHER FAT!!!! “What percentage of cow stomach is used in making things?” A galactopoetic verbo-churn of beast fats and fat sacs, Steve Halle’s Cow Stomach and Mother Fat is an orally (and aurally) haunting exploration of gender, consumption, and alienation. As if injected with Aase Berg’s cosmic fat and Christine Wertheim’s abject sonics, these creaturely poems confront a mirror-hungry society quick to feed and grill. On the hunt for the “beast you seek,” Halle leads readers to the spilled milk of language itself, a “run-on alchemy” offering endless secretions from an overfed syllabary. In other words: the cream of the crop. Cow Stomach and Mother Fat is the unforgettable event of a body weighing in on humankind’s slow fade to black: “the lonesome corner where the cooking took place.” —Paul Cunningham, author of Brillo

"bones and flesh carried / from Brillo crate / to Brillo crate /tombs or vaults / refreshing the / surface of pop / from a single crack / where muscle breathes" Copies of #Brillo are available from @lavender.ink.dialogos . For international orders, please order from @asterism_books #poetry #books #bookshelf

Can't wait to read these poems! #UGA

"Inflicted, Inflected: a scar cemented in air. Scare quotes blight my cornea: phosphor luminance, after-eclipse. World not long for this world" I love this new book by @instazawacki and its gorgeous design! THESE LATE ECLIPSES is now available from @vergebookschicago and @asterism_books