new poem in the debut issue of Mason's Road (with audio)

Probably the first poetry reading I ever attended was at a friend's home sometime around 1995.

I was invited to Jack Rickard's house. He was reading from his new chapbook from Ohio's Pudding House Publications (Staining The Grass Red) along with the PH editor Jennifer Bosveld and another poet that she'd recently published from Arizona, named David Chorlton.

Over the years, I would hear Chorlton at various readings and he soon became one of my favorites. His work provided inspiration and influence, in ways both blatant and subtle.


The debut issue from Fairfield University's new online literary journal focuses on "persona poems" and it includes my "Poem Yet To Be Written By David Chorlton"

You can read the poem (or listen to an audio clip of me reading it) here at Mason's Road

After writing that poem, I went on to write an entire series of these "impression poems" where I tried to imitate the style, voice and themes of some of my other favorite local poets. I called them Costume Poems and performed them for a special Halloween reading (with some of those poets in the audience!) .