As the title of this post would imply, I’ve updated the poetry section. Some of them are new, some of them are old. What they all have in common is that I read them last night at The Alley. They’re even in the order in which I read them.
As a side note, the reading last night went very well. Snow surprised me by having Sara Bozich come in to introduce me, which was very cool. Sara and I were very close in high school as we were both discovering a love for writing. While I cringe to think about some of the things I wrote back then, having friends who shared my passion was important (as, of course, it still is) and passing notes full of poetry back and forth throughout the day did a lot to keep me sane.
Maybe a year or two before Sara and I were passing notes in German class, the father of a friend of mine brought home a box of chapbooks by a co-worker of his named Gene Hosey. It was just starting to occur to me that maybe I thought poets were kinda cool when I saw that box, and though I don’t think I ever did read the chapbook, it was my first introduction to the idea that there were some of these kinda-cool-poet-folks in a world at least adjacent to mine, if not actually in my world. Last night was the first time I saw Gene read at any length and he very much reinforced this crazy idea I have that poets are pretty okay. His work is sharp, funny, human, and crazy. I spoke with him a bit last night, and my impression is that he is much like his poetry. It was an honor to be featured with him.