Five poems on Poetry WTF?! from the series Liner Notes: "Tangled Up," "And the Angels Sing," "Jekyll," "In Three Colors," and "Something Sweet." Liner Notes

Excited to have a new poem on Sheila-Na-Gig, "Shoe Town, 1980."  "Shoe Town, 1980"

New Poem on Yes Poetry: "Sunlight Beckons Beyond the Dumpster"

http://www.yespoetry.com/news/roger-w-hecht

Wow! Is it 2016 already?

This blogging is an odd thing, and I'm very odd at it. In the intervening time since my last self-promotional post some things have happened in the ups and downs of life. Most important, some new poems emerged on the scene! Here some links to them.  First, thanks to friends at The Otter magazine:
Sky Burial
And thanks to friends at Zoomoozophone (you can find me on page 37):
https://issuu.com/zoomoozophone_review/docs/zr10

While you enjoy these, you can also enjoy these pictures of moss and clouds I took in Danby, NY with my iphone:

Coming to a mailbox near you!

Thrilling! Talking Pictures is now officially available. I'm a little speechless now that the publisher's link is up.  I'll let the poems speak (talk) for themselves.  These are a selection from the section titled "J & J."

 

Aches, bunions, corns doctors examined.

Festering grumble held intact.  Jack’s karyo-

Lymph manifested nearly orphic pain.  Qualified

Radial sensors targeted unusual veins, while

X-rays Y-chromosomes zapped.  Zones yielded

xeric weltschmerz , vast  unrequited temporal

sadness: restless, quivering, perpetually

overwhelmed, needing menstrual love. 

Kind Jill, indigent heroine, gracious

Faun, eased despair. Calm brow arched. 

Just as he

Aches & knows its source but

Can’t know the source,

Knowing instead he must tread

Around it, she too

Needs to find the substance of her

Dreaming.  Together they walk,

Jack & Jill, toward the rising mist

Ill-equipped to confront their

Longing, but bravely refusing to

Leave it any longer.

There's 50 pages of this stuff!  Only $15.00.  Click on the picture.  It'll take you there.

So much for shameless self promotion.  I'll report from readings when I get there.

Won't you please come to Chicago?

10:30 pm--the eve of AWP.  I'm exhausted from the planes but happy to be here.  A weird trip, however.  First off, the hardware holding the strap to my laptop case spontaneously shatters (lesson one: don't buy cheap briefcases at Marshalls!).  Is this an omen?  Next, the turbo-prop scheduled to take me from Ithaca to LaGuardia breaks on the tarmac.  I later heard that the pilot heard a popping sound when it was landing--never a good thing.  A hectic re-booking not just on different flights, but on different airlines.  A few hours later I'm standing at a counter in Philadelphia, being told that yes, I've been booked on a flight to Chicago, but no, they don't have a seat for me.  I'll just have to wait to see if one opens up (it does).  After that, high clouds and turbulence and a very shaky, but successful landing.  Now I'm at the Congress Plaza Hotel typing this; a hotel that may or may not be in the middle of a labor dispute.  It's old and ornate and filled with AWP conventioneers (do we get mouse-eared hats with our registration packet?).  Big day tomorrow:  11 am--book signing at  Cervena Barva Press table; 4:45 U of AZ MFA reading will Amy Pence, Val Martinez, Ann Cummins and others.  I'm feeling all "writerly" and stuff!  Mostly, it'll be fun.

Latest News

As of Tuesday (2/7) my new book, Talking Pictures, has gone to press.  I will have copies in hand for the AWP Conference at the end of the month. Yippee!  I love the cover (which I'll have to upload from a different computer).

Meanwhile, on Tuesday night SUNY, Oneonta hosted Arthur Flowers--novelist, griot storyteller supreme.  He brought out all the bells and whistles (and conch shells and harmonicas and kalimbas!). A mesmerizing event.  We look forward to having him back again, maybe after his new novel (from which he read excerpts) is published.