Dear literary establishment that has been rejecting me since 2011,

I will submit again.

Manifesto by John Thomas Menesini

the only poets I like are the poets I know – inappropriate erections in thin pants have more influence on my writing than art – art does not arouse in me a desire to create shit, it only gives me a framework in which to create shit

I’m more inspired by your Mom or old wino piss & I’d rather sidestep poopsmears on the sidewalk than pay to walk around the Whitney

Da…

Pixie by Lucille Gelsomina Falco

her name is censored she runs with the lame deer

rusted joints cause her to shriek through the bark of her lean-to

her corneas diluted yellowed with gasoline with a crude oil vocabulary and vaginal molars

her hair grows backwards so she braided dead rats tail to tail to tail to tail

previously published by Fuck Art, Let’s Dance

Books & Shovels lacks a vehicle at the moment.  How are we carrying around 500+ books?  Well, we’re not.

We are currently hitchhiking through Florida with our frame packs glued to our shoulders and our shoes splitting against cracked sidewalk heat.  38 hours of Greyhound bus living dropped us off in Tampa, where carnies and Florida’s weirdness reared with the setting sun as we cracked open rum…

Making Love by Jeremiah Walton

like chewing roses like love

I’m hallucinating that mad man again

he’s in the bedroom with his beard waking me from dreams I don’t remember then he’s really there

I swing a knife I don’t know how to use accidentally gut him going to jail for murder

(good lawyers are out of my wallet’s width)

or knick him he’ll chuckle reaching out with working man hands

& strangle me.

Reflecting on Everything That I Loved About Your Art Exhibition by Gwil James Thomas

Free booze.

previously published in Fuck Art, Let’s Dance

Burning down the Museums by Jeremiah Walton

Drunken tinnitus in my ears My friends mother miserably talks in her sleep 45 minutes retching above the toilet & I still love you.

The phrase I want to use like a rare bee sting

Words are fossils for action to unearth

Museums reject stolen cheese cake in a walmart as romantic

& we construct our own museum

for the hell of it

& giggle as the crowds roll in

Walking alone letting the quiet thoughts knock.

“Hello”

Florida Winters by Jesse Stewart 

Juicy orange groves flood as oceans crawl from the skies- in a somber sheet.

A gang called government has a tazer against the spine of human beings.  A natural collection of inhuman qualities and control tendencies.  Conditioning to think of a Controlling Body as necessary has led to disregard of dismantling the entirety of the concept by the vast majority of the population.    Ezra Letra is a poet and hip hop artist, among many trades and arts.  Ezra is author of  the…

A Noiseless Patient Spider by Walt Whitman

A noiseless, patient spider, I mark’d, where, on a little promontory, it stood, isolated; Mark’d how, to explore the vacant, vast surrounding, It launch’d forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself; Ever unreeling them–ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you, O my Soul, where you stand, Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space, Ceaseles…

Here are some journals I’ve been published by:

Zygote in my Coffee / Dead Beats / Black Listed Magazine / 13 Myna Birds / Literary Orphans / My Favorite Bullet / Voicemail Poems / Counterexample Poetics / Empty Mirror / Mad Swirl / Decades Review / Bohemia

Here are some journals I want to be published by:

Underground Voices / BlazeVox / Punk Hostage Press / H_NGM_N Books / 32 Poems / BOMB / PANK …

“You listen to me book… you’re supposed to self publish! Get out there!”

Self-publishing is a crash course in how to smash your face against the internet without knowing if you’ll make it out alive.  I prefer the D.I.Y. route when it comes to publishing, or at least being involved with the press publishing my book.

I’m not saying if City Lights Book Store came knocking, I’d send them away.…

10.  Recycling Counter Cultures

I played this game for a long time, and I’m trying to edge off of it.  I wrote Ginsberg-esque poems that were poor imitations.  The Beats have nearly vanished, and yes, they are amazing writers, but their voice is not that of today, their America has withered, it is today, the 21st century we must engage with.

9. Re-creating Dead People’s Sound

Okay, this is…

Previously published at Literary Manhattan by Richard Templeton 

“UndergroundBooks, located in the Paul Laurence Dunbar building in the literary heart of Harlem occupies its time putting together some of the best poetry the city and world has to offer. And now they’re joining forces with two New York poets to create Books and Shovels, a mobile bookstore like no other.

Independent poetry press,…