5 facts about my newest book

1. ) The earliest poems in this collection were written in late 2021 and were based around TS Eliot's The Wasteland, one of the most influential works on my baby poet self back in the 90s and something that felt it needed to be revisited, especially amid the modern political, social, and post-pandemic environment. Conversely, the latest poems in the collection were written early in the spring as the broken places series about crumbling houses and disappearing pasts.  

2.) The image on the cover, and on the back, were some early experiments in AI generative art, which I was playing with a lot in the spring, as both a way to get badly needed customized elements for collages, and in this case, just adjusting and tweaking prompts and photographic styles to get what I wanted. AI art always looks slightly wonky and uncanny valley, which is actually something I wanted in this case, though not always. You can see more of that style in the zine version of the broken places series. 

3.) This is my seventh self-issued title somehow, which means the process of layout and design is a little smoother and doesn't take as long mired down in formatting stuff, which I can get close to in place by the first or second proof copy (which means a faster turn around from start to finish and actual copies in my hands faster.) I learn more, however, each time I do it, both about design and promoting a new book amid a sea of other poets and other books. I still feel like its much more work than traditional publishing in so many ways, but most of it is work I enjoy and I love having complete creative control. 

4.) The middle, and longest section of the book is memoir in bone & ink, which was basically all about not wanting to write poetry anymore, and yet, here I am. 

5.) Some of the most fun poems to write were the technogrotesque series that closes the book, which both look and sound very different from what comes before, both in tone and line length. Narrow lines, short stanzas, more attention than usual to sound (or at least it seems like it in their spareness and musicality) The poems themselves are about technology and de-individualization and disassociation amid internet culture..