Hello! Here you can learn a bit about the two volumes of poetry I have out, City of Cold Ribcages and A Hundred Thousand Salty Histories. Both are available right now, although I only have limited quantities. And both are free! However, if you'd like to make a "donation to the arts," please click on the "make a donation" button below. Or, if you'd like to make a contribution to Poems for Poemosity, click here. To order a copy of one or both books, please send me an email and I'll get a copy to you as fast as I can, which may not be very fast at all. So please, read on to hear about each of these fine, fine books. Thanks!

with love from the MPLS: City of Cold Ribcages

This book is an extended love poem to the city where I grew up and where I now live, Minneapolis. The punks I ran with during high school, learning to spell M-i-ss-i-ss-i-pp-i, a fort that was never in a war, the lakes of south MPLS, retreats to the summer cabin, the harshness of nature and the seasons, the giddiness with which Minnesotans embrace warm weather, the happily sad lens we use to view our childhoods, the elegance of Christmas lights in trees. This is my first book, first published in April and already in its second printing. This printing has one extra poem and a few added photos, but I've taken out the short story "Ragged Company." Sorry about that, if you liked it. All in all there are 18 poems. The book is printed on Mohawk Navajo Brilliant White paper, a paper I would not hesitate to call "sultry." My favorite word in the book is either "serifed" or "unraveling."

 

with love from the City of Destiny: A Hundred Thousand Salty Histories

"Wrap your grey collar around my neck," this volume begins. "Salty Histories" is poems about Tacoma, the grey collar. Poems about water, air, pine trees, scarves, islands, college, living south of 6th Ave, coastlines, mountains, trains, Portland, failure, success, charity, streets, homes, Henry Miller, fog, old pants, the color blue, June, motorboats, nicknames, crossword puzzles, an overwhelming and perhaps inappropriate love for a lesbian folksinger, rain, rain, more rain, some sunlight, the act of writing itself, and, most importantly, some of the people most dear to me in this whole world. It's a foggy, drizzly book, with great warming bursts of summer and sunshine. This is my second book, published in December. All told, we've got 14 poems here, five of which are totally new. The inside cover photo was taken on Mt. Rainier in February, on a day which was warm, yet snow covered the ground--a day which was sunny, yet both snowy and rainy. The book is typeset in Mrs. Eaves, an amazing font I stole from work. It has a warm, curvy, inviting charm. The italicized letter "y" is certainly the most beautiful letter in the font set. My favorite words are "eleemosynary," "indigo," "uplifted," and "cardigan." AHTSH (I like calling it that; it sounds like a sneeze) also has what I think is my best couplet:

All of this written on my hand,
Like broken seams in old pants.

Don't tell anyone, but even though I wrote this couplet nearly three years ago, I still have no idea what it means.