Writing

I’m a poet, memoirist, essayist, and critic. Learn more about my memoir, The Resurrection Appearances: Fragments of a Daybook, here. Scroll down for links to recent work online!

SUBSTACK:

Seven Best Things: book notes, essays, astronomy photos, song notes, poetry.

CRITICISM & CONVERSATION:

2023: “A Conversation with Gabrielle Bates,” Adroit.

“‘We Know Our Own Lives Expertly’: a Conversation with Hilary Plum,” Essay Daily.

“Dead Poets Love Us Back,” on Polina Barskova, Poetry Northwest.

2019: Review of Lauren Levin’s Justice Piece // Transmission, Full Stop.

Review of Brian Teare’s Doomstead Days, Full Stop.

2018: “The Lyric of the Crowd,” on Jose Perez Beduya, Berfrois.

2017: Review of Jane Wong’s Overpour, Full Stop.

“Drowned Rooms,” on Valerie Mejer Caso, Poetry Northwest.

2016: “Holiday with Hangman,” on Frederick Seidel’s “Barbados,” Poetry Northwest.

“Living Fire and Flattered Lyre,” on Erica Mena and Robert Fernandez, Jacket2.

2015: “Our Criticism Could Be Your Life,” interview with Eric Weisbard, on the twentieth anniversary of his SPIN Alternative Record Guide, in Berfrois.

“No Things but in Ideas,” on Mei-Mei Berssenbrugge, Poetry Northwest.

“Outrageous and Mundane Life,” on Norman Dubie, Poetry Northwest.

Older work: For two years, I kept a column on poetics for the blog of the Kenyon Review. A few columns I’m especially proud of: a series on Cordwainer Smith, surrealism, and instrumental consciousness, one on James Baldwin, and one on the nostalgia of old dystopias. For four years, I also co-edited the poetry journal Thermos along with Zach Savich, Andy Stallings, and Melissa Dickey.

On Corina Copp and Ben Fama, in Kenyon Review Online. On Emily Wilson and Julie Carr, in Kenyon Review Online. On Sara Gridley, John Cross, and Lance Phillips, in Kenyon Review Online. On Kiki Petrosino, in Rain Taxi. On Susan Tichy, Polina Barskova, and Novica Tadic, in Jacket2. Gonna periodically re-post on my blog old pieces I like that aren’t otherwise available online.

POETRY & MEMOIR:

2024: From Like Honey in New Delta Review.

“Stained Altars” in Poetry Northwest, Winter/Spring 2024 issue (buy here).

Forthcoming work in Mare Nostrum, Omnium Gatherum Quarterly, and Guesthouse.

2023: From “Daybook” in Neon Door.

From Like Honey in Poetry Northwest.

2021: “On Some Excuses for Feeling Pierced by Existence,” winner of Community Chest Prize in Pacifica Literary Review.

“On Exhalation,” “To the 9 of Wands” in Interim.

From The Resurrection Appearances: a Daybook from a Grief Year, in Passages North no. 42 (buy here).

2020: From Like Honey, in Jubilat 36 (buy here).

From Poor & Carefree Strangers: a Poem for Salt Spring Island, in FIVES: a Companion to Denver Quarterly. Best of the Net 2021 Nominee.

2019: From Like Honey, in Tammy 10 (buy here).

“After the Late Storm the Four of Us Saw” and from Like Honey, in Big Big Wednesday (buy here).

From Poor & Carefree Strangers: a Poem for Salt Spring Island, in Knell (buy here).

2018: From Like Honey, in The Spectacle and in COAST | NoCOAST.

Older work: The Oakland Review, Big Big Wednesday, Fog Machine, Sprung Formal, The Stockholm Review of Literature, THEthe Poetry, Jellyfish, Propeller, Till, Denver Quarterly, Flood Stage: an Anthology of St. Louis Poets, Super Arrow, Microfilme, Volt, The Stranger‘s Seattle Poetry Chain, Alive at the Center: Contemporary Poetry from the Pacific Northwest, Poetry International and Pleiades. If you make me a mixtape, I’ll mail you a zine.

ALSO

I once co-wrote a semi-famous novelty song that you can find on Youtube, and if you wanna read my Dungeons & Dragons fiction, look through back issues of Pathfinder magazine.

Here’s a poem to me (scroll down) by one of my best friends and favorite poets!

Photos: Libby Lewis, Libby Lewis, Howard Romero.