Archive for the ‘Ink’s Poetry’ Category

The Vessel of the Now

Posted: March 13, 2023 in Ink's Poetry
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Today, a small collection of even smaller poems that explore the eternity locked inside every fraction of every second is being put up for pre-order by Back Room Poetry (in the UK, not in the UK). Go ahead and get one, because there’s only going to be 50 copies printed!

“The Vessel of the Now” started as a string of tweets playfully mocking the reverent tone, subject matter, and repetition of the ecstatic lyric(s) comprising Gregory Orr’s Concerning the Book That Is the Body of the Beloved, which imagines and personifies the all of humanity’s creative output as a single bound collection to illustrate how we are all connected. (Side note: it is a fantastic collection I recommend you buy or borrow and read this instant.) The tweets came on the heel of my finishing the composition of 61 Central, a solemn endeavor, but were a tonal foil of sorts. Eventually, these grew into small, jovial poems dedicated to isolating and exploding the concept of a moment for all it contains (which, to invoke the title of a recent Academy Award Best Picture winner, is everything, everywhere, all at once).

All that may sound like academic babble, but the poems of “The Vessel of the Now” are written to be deceptively simple and engaging with the wit and humor required for looking at life and all it contains. Sometimes sopping with sophistry and other times outright flippant, this collection offers a perspective that I hope helps people laugh at how small we really are and realize the potential of every single moment.

Treasures found!

Posted: March 6, 2022 in Ink's Poetry
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Hello there. I was recently doing some spring cleaning and came upon a box filled with some copies of books I thought were long extinct. These include my first self-published collection, Miserable with fire, and a collection published by Piscataway House Publications, Death Loves a Drinking Game.

Details about the books and how to obtain them are available on this page. Supplies are extremely limited, so get one before it is impossible to do so.

Miserable with Fire (2011)
Death Loves a Drinking Game (2014)

Posted: September 29, 2017 in Ink's Poetry
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61CentralCoverFLP

 

 

It’s been a long time coming, and it’s still got a little ways to go yet, but 61 Central will be available as of January 2018 from the folks over at Finishing Line Press!

Put in your pre-order now!

It may only be autumn now, but the chills start in January.

 

 

Some kind words about 61 Central from some fantastic people:

“In 61 Central, Ink explores an old Central Pennsylvania coal town turned ghost town by a man-made environmental disaster and the highway that runs through it. Using language that’s both concise and cinematic, he at times evokes the suspense of Steven Spielberg’s classic film debut Duel and Muriel Rukeyser’s poetic document of environmental disaster, The Book of the Dead. He empathizes with what was and what remains, while his description of the all consuming eternal inferno that rages just below the surface is chilling.”

–Tony Gruenewald, Poet, The Secret History of New Jersey

 

“61 Central makes interesting work of winter—how gentle weather casts a devastated and haunting terrain, due mostly to the human impact within that landscape. Ink frames a reality not for fallen snow, but it’s aftermath. This is why we yearn for warmer months.”

–Patrick Boyle, Features Editor, The Rumpus

 

“In 61 Central “this much is obvious: no-one is home.” An empty town, like absence, has “no vocabulary,” yet Ink’s poetry outlines the shapes of ghosts. The concrete of empty houses turns to “bones” and abandoned couches become “almost-alters.” This collection beautifully leads us through an abandoned town evoking an ache and yearning for all those we will never know.”

–Nicelle Davis, Poet, In the Circus of You, The Walled Wife