It took a while to get everything together, but my little havoc book is now available for order. Initially, this was some of the poems that were part of the now dismantled kissing disease manuscript (actually the title poem of that collection is in this chap.) That whole thing was just too big and sprawling and messy and ultimately I decided this segment of poems made a better chapbook than full-length. (the rest of that manuscript, the text, actually became another project that will be more box-like and less book like, but more on that later.)
I feel a little like these poems are the first departure from the sort work I was doing in my MFA years (but then again my work was changing even then--a shift from the bird museum poems to the girl show ones. It might just be cosmetic (there are more first person poems in here than any other project since the fever almanac. But I also feel like, if the poems in the earlier books were these little machines, that havoc is witten INSIDE the machines, if that makes any sense. There is more of a whirliness to them, even though they deal with the same sorts of subject matter, a more interior viewpoint, in among the grease and the gears. And indeed, the tension between order and disorder (or havoc), I guess is one of the biggest themes.
I guess I have my own personal closure & catharsis reasons for being relieved this is finally finished and out there, but also, since it's a while before the next book and I have some readings coming up after the new year, I'm happy to have something new in tow for people to take away. Enjoy!
