I Keep Forgetting to Mention

I've got another book out.

During the first three weeks of March, 2020, the burgeoning pandemic started shutting everything down, and by the time Sunday, March 22 rolled around, I didn't have any church to attend that morning, no radio show to host that afternoon, and no library to go clerk at on Monday. So I decided that I was going to write a poem a day "for the duration," whatever that might end up meaning.

In this case, it meant 443 days till the library reopened to the public on June 7, 2021. You can read the 443 poems on the original web page if you want to. Or you can buy the paperback book edition of Plague Year Poems from Amazon with surreal front and back covers drawn by my brother.

And now I've mentioned it!

Mike

Comments

[PresentPerfect]

what in the world is that cover o.o

[Chinchillax]

Vacation ought to mean "relax
And let your troubles go."
It ought to spackle all the cracks
That spider through the brain

That is truly fantastic wording.

[Georg]

Um... I suppose it is safe to say the book is not cheerful and upbeat?

[FanOfMostEverything]

Took me a moment to realize that wasn't a single organism. Excellent work by your brother there.

[TheJediMasterEd]

with surreal front and back covers drawn by my brother

37.media.tumblr.com/c75a2fd513a25cb7ce9ce1cdea760e85/tumblr_n69ak38uXA1rp0vkjo1_500.gif

[Baal Bunny]

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When I was:

A couple months into the project, my brother called me and said he had the perfect cover for when I put together the paperback version. So when I was putting together the paperback version, I called him and asked to see this perfect cover. He then sent me four separate images, saying he couldn't decide which would be best. We went back and forth, choosing bits from one and bits from another, and he stitched them all into a fine but extremely peculiar image of a chipmunk--or something--astride a monster trampling a skull.

The poems actually surprised me with their cheeriness, all things considered. Just from memory, I'll point folks to the 41st poem from May 1, 2020, "Hello, Dali," or the whole sequence of badger poems from the end of August, 2020, #149, "Badgering" through #161, "Not Badger, Not Badger at All" that might reflect the "friendship is magic" spirit we all enjoy. My brother's always been a surrealist in the sharp-edged Dali tradtion while I prefer the gentler, "button-down surrealism" of Rene Magritte...

Mike

[Reese]

Ah, neat.
And good luck with sales and such!