I wrote a poem for a friend. They loved/hated it. So naturally I sent it into the world. “when asked why I'll never write you a sincere poem” was just published in The Lit Nerds.
"Facility" [flash fiction] published in OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters.
My flash fiction story "Facility" was just published in OPEN: Journal of Arts & Letters.
Two poems in Pirene’s Fountain: A Journal of Poetry
“‘there is a goodness that doesn’t need me...’” and “floating” are ekphrastic poems that have been published in Pirene’s Fountain: A Journal of Poetry .
Click on the link below to read the full issue.
"watching a production of Beauty and the Beast after attempting to be vulnerable" published in Rituals
“watching a production of Beauty and the Beast after attempting to be vulnerable” is a loosely ekphrastic work in a series of “watching” poems I accidently started writing. It is found within the 2025 edition of Rituals from Anomaly Poetry.
Click on the link below to access the entire anthology.
Three poems in Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age
I have three poems appearing in Record of Dissent: Poems of Protest in an Authoritarian Age, a free digital chapbook from The Chaos Section Poetry Project. Record of Dissent features 44 poems of protest, resistance, survival, and hope in response to the rising authoritarianism of the Trump era in America.
My three poems are:
“misstra know-it-all” (p. 9),
“when asked for help writing a satire” (p. 38), and
“say what you mean” (p. 58)
"The Quiet Part" [creative nonfiction] published in In Short
My micro-creative nonfiction story “The Quiet Part” no appears in In Short : A Journal of Flash Nonfiction.
victuals and victim do not share a Latin root published in The Prose Poem
The Prose Poem has published another of my ekphrastic works, “victuals and victim do not share a Latin root.”
It is after Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller’s Slave Ship, wax, 1954.
I'm on The My Bad Poetry Podcast again!
Listen me explain why these three ekphrastic poems were cut out of a manuscript in progress:
“life is bigger than you” - an erasure of REM’s “Losing My Religion”
“a new hope” - based on Chase Kahwinhut Earles’ Dominion, hand-built and kiln fired porcelain, 1976.
“if we're being honest” - on Master of Figline’s Saint Francis of Assisi 1335, egg tempera and gold leaf on panel.
But I end with a reading of “Job confronts Maggie Smith at a conference,” which is after Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” and the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible.
"So Bound is Creation by the Cry of Trumpets" published in Stone Circle Review
My ekphrastic poem “So Bound is Creation by the Cry of Trumpets” was just published in Stone Circle Review.
It is after the 2022 dip pen and India ink creation of James Dye by the same name.
"if Havah had a daughter" Published in Mom Egg Review
My ekphrastic poem "if Havah had a daughter" is appearing in the latest issue of Mom Egg Review. It is based on William-Adolphe Bouguereauex's painting Temptation and imaginings on the book of Genesis in the Hebrew Bible.
"Job confronts Maggie Smith at a conference" published in Presence 2025
I’m honored to have another poem appearing Presence . This time it is my ekphrastic poem “Job confronts Maggie Smith at a conference,” which is after Maggie Smith’s “Good Bones” and the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible.
"White Woman Freedom" [CNF] in Identity Theory
She told me to eat, pray, live, laugh, and love. To be #Blessed. To appropriate dances like no one was watching the Black girls on TikTok. To vision board the fridge and every wall, with inspirational quotes giving no credit to the Black women on Instagram. Stolen, like their hair, lips, ass, and tan.
As Paul Mooney said, “Everybody wants to be a nigger, but nobody wants to be a nigger.”
My creative nonfiction piece “White Woman Freedom” was published in Identity Theory.
"breach" published in The Prose Poem
My ekphrastic poem “Breach” is after the Alison Saar sculpture by the same name and was recently published in The Prose Poem.
“Okonkwo returns to Umuofia” at Menino Arts Center
My poem “Okonkwo returns to Umuofia” was on display as part of the Menino Arts Center’s exhibit Images Then Words (January 9 – February 14, 2025), which featured the work of 53 Word Artists responding to 61 pieces by 47 Image Artists. Images juried & curated by Sasja Lucas. Words curated by Holly Guran. View the virtual 3D gallery here.
“Okonkwo returns to Umuofia” is a doubly ekphrastic work, responding both to Sasja Lucas’ The Wrestling Match (pictured below) and Chinua Achebe’s novel Things Fall Apart.
Sasja Lucas
The Wrestling Match
120mm film photography
8 x 10 in (h x w)
Okonkwo returns to Umuofia
seven years was a long time to be away from one’s clan,
but he would return to his fatherland and fan his fame—
a bush-fire beneath the stiff harmattan wind. he had a plan:
reclaim his land, rebuild his compound, regain his titles and place
among the egwugwu. but Okonkwo was not prepared
for what he found. his motherland was good to him in exile,
kind. but Mbanta was not filled with warriors. they were weak.
how else could they fall from the grand, old ways—the bonds
of kinship—and allow an abominable religion to fester
like an un-lanced boil or an untreated bout of iba? his Umuofia
was feared by her neighbors, known for her power in war
and in magic. her priests and medicine men possessing
the most potent rites and fetishes, the shrine of agadi-nwayi
among them. thus Okonkwo could not believe Obierika’s reports
of home. but by the second market week back, he began to see
the truth. how his brothers strut across the village square
in white shirts and dusky trousers, abandoning the loincloth
and wrappers worn since the founder of the clan engaged a spirit
of the wild for seven days and nights. how his kinsmen drink
palm wine tapped in Umuru from glass bottles, their gourds
and skulls gathering dust on their obi walls. how titled men
allow themselves to be dragged by kotma to the white man’s court,
to be beaten by his perverted justice. how even some elders dance
to the rhythm of the white man’s religion, deaf to the ekwe
and ogene talking across villages, across the clan’s history.
how supposed men stride—hatted heads held high—to and from
their abomination, their church, in the Evil Forest, believing
their Jesu Kristi will save them from the wrath of Ekwensu and Ani,
Amadiora and Chukwu. it was easier when the converts were only
efulefu—sheaths taken into battle, machetes forgotten at home,
the excrement of the clan lapped up by this mad-dog faith. but now
even Ogbuefis have severed their anklets, become as agbala, to join
the Christians’ meager feast of their god-man’s murdered body.
something must be done. but surrounded by so many such as these…
as cold water poured on a roaring fire, he stifles a sorrow, a grief
he has not known since the last days of the son whose name will not
be remembered in the clan and the one who will. his fist aches,
reflexively clenching around the machete resting inside his obi door.
he will shake out his smoked raffia shirt, examine his feathered headgear
and shield to satisfaction. he turns for home as if on springs, heels
hardly touching the ground. as the elders say,
whenever you see a toad jumping in broad daylight,
know that something is after its life.
CLMP reading list for Black History Month
Two poems in Lily Poetry Review
I am very proud that two of my ekphrastic poems were published in the latest issue of Lily Poetry Review , guest edited by Anthony Walton and Heather Treseler.
"The Most Dangerous Game" is after a poem by Candice Kelsey (and the short story) of the same name
“La Voix du Silence" is after a painting by Rene Magritte of the same name.
“when asked what it’s like being a poet” in Whale Road Review & Nominated for a Pushcart
My poem “when asked what it’s like being a poet” is is based on one of my favorite poems to teach, “The Art of Disappearing” by Naomi Shihab Nye. It is published in the latest issue of Whale Road Review, and have been nominated for a Pushcart Prize!
New Creative Nonfiction Editor at Porcupine Literary!
I’m the new CNF Editor at Porcupine Literary, a journal for and by educators. Yes, you read that right: CNF, not poetry editor. It’s a strange world. But I’m starting to embrace the whole “I write prose, specifically CNF a lot these days” aspect of my (writing)life.
Send your stuff our way!
"Perspective" nominated for a Pushcart
Happy to hear that my CNF piece “Perspective” was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by After the Art.
"Explaining 'the patron saint of suicide'" published in Nixes Mate
My creative nonfiction piece “Explaining ‘the patron saint of suicide’” was published in Nixes Mate Review.
As the title suggests, this is an essay that braids the stories of
writing the poem “the patron saint of suicide” (originally published in Cola Literary Review, but also appearing in said the Frog to the scorpion),
how well I disassociate while doing poetry readings, and
a night when I didn’t disassociate while reading “the patron saint of suicide.”