MasticadoresUsa is helping to promote my first full-length collection, Our Loveliest Bruises (3:A Taos Press), which was released in January 2025. i’m unable, due to health, to adequately promote the book via the usual path (a tour, readings, etc.), and am extremely grateful to Barbara Leonhard for providing this service and for sharing two poems from the collection: “Ashes” and “My Mother’s Ghost Looks Away When I Say Her Father’s Name.” Thank you, Barbara!
My poem “My Mother’s Ghost Scrubs the Floor at 2 a.m.” is featured today at Only Poems Daily.
Many thanks to Svetlana Litvinchuk and the Only Poems Team for featuring this poem!
“My Mother’s Ghost Scrubs the Floor at 2 a.m.” first appeared in The Indianapolis Review, was subsequently nominated for a Pushcart Prize, and is included in my debut full-length collection, Our Loveliest Bruises (3: A Taos Press, 2025).
One of my favorite publications, Vox Populi, is featuring four of my poems. These hendecasyllabic pieces (consisting of eleven lines, each containing eleven syllables) reflect back on the early days of my illness, when pain and difficulties breathing prevented me from lying down. I spent six months attempting to sleep on a recliner before treatment allowed me back in bed.
My poems “When to Say Goodbye” and “I Praise the Moon, Even When She Laughs” are live at Does It Have Pockets. Many thanks to Camille Griep and the Does It Have Pockets team for taking these previously published pieces and offering them new life.
I’m delighted to announce that my poem “Love Poem with Eight Questions” is live at Spirit Lake Review. Many thanks to the Spirit Lake Review editorial team for taking this piece!
I am honored that my poem “From Left to Right I Consider Purpose and Kanji” is live at Formidable Woman Sanctuary as a contribution to editor and founder d ellis phelps’s Solace Project. The poem also resides in my new full-length book, Our Loveliest Bruises, from 3: A Taos Press. I am grateful to d for this publication and many other kindnesses over the years.
To view the poem, scroll down to the end.
My poem “Letter to Moorman from Advancement” is live at The Glass Post. I am grateful to editor and founder Kay for taking this piece.
My poem “The Starlings Were You,” which won the Shō Poetry Prize earlier this year, is live at Verse Daily. Many thanks to editor J.P. Dancing Bear for featuring this piece, and to Shō Poetry editors Dominique Ahkong and Johnny Cordova for their kindness and support.
My poem “In Another Life” is live at The Imagist. Many thanks to editor Holly Ponce and The Imagist team for taking this piece.
A video of the January 2025 Black Dog Poetry Open Mic may be found here. The passcode is: M51?8Ht0
The last character of the passcode is a zero. I’m grateful for having had the opportunity to celebrate the publication of my first full-length collection, Our Loveliest Bruises, among the company of so many friends and readersI. Thank you!
O at the Edges 