21.12.2021
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and 6 ft apart on a bench, rhubarb chutney, sorrel, OR, 2 new poems in Ethel Zine #8

Ethel Zine # 8, this sown marvel, holds some new poems.

These are the first poems I’ve written and published all during this pandemic. Jay Besemer’s poem “The Wound” helped me recover from some of that damage. Thank you, Jay.

A figure behind this poem, is my friend Jeremy, who I went on a bike ride with during the height of the lock downs. We went from my house in Hamlin Park in Buffalo south, down Rohrer. We weren’t pedaling to get anywhere. Just to talk. Part of the job of these fugue poems is to find an ease of being in place, those currents of it, in a place like Buffalo, which is often a difficult city. They are also an aesthetic expression of my mental disorder these past several years. Make it sound good, you know.

Laurie Saurborn, Stephanie Powell, & Laura Ring, among others, also wrote things in here I enjoyed. Can you imagine all the work Sara Lefsyk sunk into putting these together, perforation & thread? Support Ethel, if you can.

11.10.2021
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What is the net

Strange to think one could be considered for best poem on internet; that a prize can even pretend to wrangle this quaking terrain. That said, I’m grateful to Anvil Tongue Books for nominating a recent poem, “Da Fugue Zone #62: The Great Beyond,” for a Best of Net 2021. It’s pretty rad company in this group of nominations alone.

As of this morning, there are 182 fugue poems. The titling is shifting but the impulse is the same. I do not know quite what it is yet, tho its faces say words.