Poetry

“If you are interested in the goings-on of the writing community, buy this book. . . . Five stars.”—Andrew Turman, painter and podcast host

Though I have written poetry since 1978 and included poems in previous books, I released my first collection of all poetry on January 13, 2019, after a once-in-a-lifetime session of writing twenty poems in one day.

The title of Narcissist was prompted by Jay Sizemore (who had in 2017 released a collection entitled Misogynist) calling me a narcissist.   The content of the book is a poetic history of my life, persons and events, written so the reader might judge my life and me without having to take Jay’s word for it.  (I felt that writing about myself was the appropriately narcissistic response.)

My publishing this collection then prompted Jay to stop speaking with me forever and kick me out of the table we had rented together at the 2019 AWP bookfair.

These are the poems that offended the self-proclaimed “Poet Laureate of Infamy” without his even having read them.

My Father
My Mother
Only Child
Friends
Bullies
Girls
Reagan
Bush I
Clinton
Introversion
Bush II
Obama
Christianity
The Crisis
The Second Crisis
Writers
Robin
Claire
Lucas
Narcissism

and an Afterword by Poet Laureate himself.