Last Days in the Bomb Shelter (17 Narrower Poems)
limited edition of 64
Satellite 7 Press, 2008
$5 post-paid
e-mail for ordering information
read CAConrad’s review on Goodreads
Last Days in the Bomb Shelter (17 Narrower Poems), my debut chapbook, is now available from Satellite 7 Press.
Over the past year at PennSound, I’ve had the privilege of being brought into a larger poetic community — both electronically (my day-to-day interaction with our massive library of recordings), and in person, through my work with Charles Bernstein and Al Filreis, the thriving PhillySound scene (particularly CAConrad and Frank Sherlock), and a wide range of visitors and correspondents — which has been tremendously fulfilling, as well as inspiring. Last Days in the Bomb Shelter was originally intended to be a calling card of sorts: a means of responding to the various poetic discourses I was engaged in, and more practically, something to give back to all the folks who were kind enough to slip me a copy of their book or send me their latest work in progress.
Then I started laying out the book and the addictive thrill of publishing took over (there is printing in the blood, after all — my grandfather lost the tip of a finger to a giant Curtis press) and I decided to make a larger edition of 64 available to a wider audience. With the exception of one poem, everything here was written in the past six months, and a few were composed days before printing began. The “narrower” in the subtitle is solely a matter of widths: I had a number of open-field works I’d hoped to include which were too wide for the format.
Here are two poems from the book:
My Last Dime and What It Got Me
often, I have made the wrong decision
no-light burns within me—it warms
the coin clutched in my nervous palm
we exchange electrons (no
natural order to things)
a dampened reaction
in my other hand, a ticket
we soar above endless wastes—
never so dear a price
(“this stop discontinued”)
we make a radiant loop
I will learn to keep my mouth shut
My Own Disaster
a threatened loss
at 3am
is dimmed in its intensity
despite the fact
that I have reversed
childbirth.
please don’t lose
any sleep
over me.
