poetry

Artificial Respiration (TKS, December 2020) combines the domestic convention of the wall calendar and the Surrealist tradition of collage poetics into a collaborative artists’ book that includes twelve months plus calendrical coda. With poems by Conley Lowrance, collages by Sarah Monks, Artificial Respiration was printed in an edition of 77 copies, saddle-stitched in colored staples and signed by the poet and artist. In a lavender glassine envelope, with rubber-stamped cover and calendar insert designed by TKS publisher M.C. Kinniburgh. Artificial Respiration may be purchased on Granary Books here.

alt text of the poem for a screen reader: artificial respiration IV See, I have certain obligations to my customers, I sell them copper-coated tubes & let them push me in my wheelchair. But when the company announces that it will suspend production of its amazing lungs, what am I to do? You won’t lose your job, don’t worry! As if! Here, hand me toilet paper, hand me webcams, none of those high-tech warehouses, no chess sets with their unblinking eyes. No, I’m taking to the beach, tonight if I can. I’m looking for sand or to be struck dead by falling coconuts. I am looking for additional paid time! Please respond.

Brokelyn, four poems, January, 2019

Alt text of poem for a screen reader: A SHORT FILM ON THE HISTORY OF NATIONS & PROGRESS The camera pans across the mouths. Each mouth, an oil slick. Speaking into one another. It is perfectly natural to speak, you might say. The camera nods vigorously. It is perfectly natural for the telephone to wait for you by the door to kiss you on the cheek when you return. The scene changes. Sunday arrives like tousled hair. The camera is attentive now, like a child. Watch: the mouths are socializing, gesturing. One hands another a flute of champagne. One mouth hurls itself through the nearby window & hits the ground below. Who cares. We’ve made a lot of money from these mouths, you might say. & the camera, eagerly, nods in agreement. & money is like skin. Skin, the largest organ. Twenty-two square feet of skin. Money, like skin, must be kept clean. The camera falls out of focus. Returns. The mouths have been replaced by a stack of photographs. They wait on an empty table in the middle of an empty room. Your hand leafs through them, each portrait more illegible than the last: stranger, stranger, an actress, another stranger. The camera watches as you set them down and walk away. Scene. Off screen, the camera, dutifully, takes the discarded photographs & sets them on fire.

Bombay Gin, two poems, September, 2018

Alt text of the poem for a screen reader: HERE, WE LOSE THE CONFIDENCE You are repeating: morning, insignificant; mourning, insignificant. We’ve chained ourselves to this little bridegroom— pardon our errors, the celluloid will not. It is this American demon, no longer your ghost, no longer your haunting, that waits in my esophagus. But our mouths are damned, & we are opening doors we may never close again. I cannot speak. I am mourning, I cry often, I am pure. In the pews, blood sings of so many missing birds.

Uut Poetry, “Exeunt omnes,” February 12, 2016

Alt text of the poem for a screen reader: Exeunt omnes Pale snow staining golden lips— snow falling like dead skin. There was filth behind the door—we had just started drinking again. In that crystalized hour, my voice, almost soft, was greyish in your ears. Why are my fingers shaking? I asked in a panic. A: men are sliding credit cards along my tongue. You felt like smiling. An arrangement of holed curtains fell violently to the floor. Yet still, as if by chance, Wednesday arrives—the snow subsides.

Blazing Stadium, three poems from Artificial Respiration, August 2020

The Stockholm Review of Literature, two poems, November 20, 2016
The California Journal of Poetics, Transcription, August 31, 2016
Noble/Gas Qtrly, Anticipation, December 17, 2015
Empty Mirror, five poems, January 30th, 2015
The Glasgow Review of Books, three poems, January 23rd, 2015
Underwater New York, Dreamland, 1911, September 24th, 2014
Columbia Journal, three poems, April 28, 2014
Counterexample Poetics, Self-Portrait at a Distance, June 2012
Gadfly, Two Poems
Word Riot, Scenes of Insomnia
Myrrh, Mothwing, Smoke, Two poems (available for purchase)
A Clean, Well-Lighted Place, In the Absence of C (available for purchase)