Books and cake. Poets and campfires, oh my!

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Read my most recently published poem, here: Stirring “What I Mean When I Say Cartwheel”

What’s on your reading list for this summer? I’m currently 52 books through my goal of reading 100 poetry books this year. Just finished Smudge by Mahogany L. Browne and the Collected Poems of Lynda Hull and moving into my duende reading list, which includes The Complete Rilke, Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror by John Ashbery, John Berryman’s 77 Dream Songs, Brenda Shaughnessy’s first book Interior with Sudden Joy. Also a great essay by Yusef Komunyakaa on duende called “Forces that Move the Spirit: Duende and Blues.”

For more on duende you should look to its poetic grandpappie Federico Garcia Lorca, and for some modern thoughts on duende, dark song and the death minute: check out The Steps on the Ladder of Writing by Helene Cixous. 

And remember, buddies: “Love is the gutwrench supplex.” — W. Todd Kaneko, The Dead Wrestler Elegies