So far I have been lucky enough to publish six full length collections of poems: The Comic Flaw, Remembering the Body, With Our Baggage, The Hamlet of Stittville, A Living is Not a Life: A Working Title, and Atlas Sighs: Selected and New Poems. Below you will find a little information on each and the titles will link to more information on each book. For those looking for an overview of my poetry, here’s a link to an introduction my friend Doug Jordan did for me before my part of a reading at Del Mar College. I think Doug did a great job nailing what I try to accomplish in my poems. Doug Jordan’s 2010 introduction at DMC.
The Comic Flaw : Published because I met up with my friend Neil Orts of NeoNuma Arts at a party in Houston thrown in honor of Larry D. Thomas being named the Poet Laureate of Texas. Neil approached me and asked if I had a book manuscript that he could publish. I lied and said yes. Neil had just published a wonderful book of poems by Jill Alexander Essbaum (now Peng) who had won major awards. I figured if someone like Jill trusted Neil with her work, I should too. As a bonus Jill got asked by Neil to help me put my poems into a manuscript that made sense. Her advice was greatly appreciated. The book ended being a near memoir in free verse.
Remembering the Body : The second book is kind of like a singer song writers second album. It’s formed out of the stuff that didn’t make it into the first book/album and the new stuff that’s been written in the mean time. The first half of the book has poems in it that deal with the human body and what comes of it. The second half of the book the poems deal in some way with the Body of Christ and or the Eucharist. It was published by Jeanetta Calhoun Mish at Mongrel Empire Press, a press dedicated to publishing the Oklahoma literary scene. Hey, but you ‘re a New Yorker who lives in South Texas? I hear you but it a story way too long for this paragraph. Suffice to say my good Okie friends Ken Hada and Nathan Brown factored in. Remembering the Body won an honorable mention in the Eric Hoffer Awards.
With Our Baggage: Book number three was published at Lamar University Literary Press and Jerry Craven. The working title of the book was Signs and Sacraments. The first half of the book deals with the secular and the second half of the book was based very loosely on the 7 Catholic sacraments.
The Hamlet of Stittville: This was published by the legendary Dorothy Alexander and Tale Feathers Press a subsidiary of Village Books Press. The book allowed me the great privilege to work with a very talented high school buddy John Klossner who is a well established professional cartoonist.
A Living is not a Life: A Working Title: This book was published by Black Spruce Press after Jonas Zdanys invited me to submit a manuscript. The poems in the book are mainly about the jobs I’ve held and the concept of work. It took about 5 years to finish.
Atlas Sighs: Selected and New: This books was published by Paul Bower and Turning Plow Press. It contains a poems selected from my first three poems, a reprinting of the short-run chapbook The Fall of the Leaf and several new poems. The idea of the book sprang from the news that The Comic Flaw had gone out of print. I tried to revive the book by expanding it to include all the biographical narrative poems I had written since The Flaw was first published. Although the concept seemed like a good one, the manuscript got bloated and cumbersome and didn’t work well at all. Paul Bowers suggested a book of new and selected poems might work better, and so this manuscript was hammered out.