Speaking in Midnight Tongues and Other Symptoms of Neon Fever: Poetry & Essays

A Message on Behalf of the Author of This Book of Poetry

The author of this book of poetry knows it is just one amongst many books of poetry. The author of this book of poetry is fully aware that in the process of finding your way to this very description, you’re liable to have tripped over a pile of love ballads, wannabe Bukowskis, and other creative hopefuls maligning the state of the world. The author of this book of poetry imagines you’ve read along as many before him bemoaned their vices, romantic failures, and resulting insecurities. The author of this book of poetry also expects you might have already read a thing or two about addiction, war, and modern masculinity.

However, while the author of this book of poetry does in fact write about the above topics (as well as gentrification, racial identity, and the search for beauty in a city he does not always understand but is determined to love), it is important to him that you know he attempted to do so while veins of undiluted faith in you, the reader, pumped right into his neon heart.

The author of this book of poetry trusts you’re here for something new. The author of this book of poetry wants to blur what you have come to know as poetry with the world of the occult, the eldritch, the strange, the cosmic, the senseless, and the lawless. The author of this book of poetry thinks you’re ready for dead gods, avatar canines, blind dates with linguivores, and talking rats in the desert. The author of this book of poetry wants to get straight up weird with you.

The author of this book of poetry is absolutely terrified by the idea of having written just another book of poetry. The author of this book of poetry is all too aware of the hubris baked into any attempts to do otherwise yet the author of this book of poetry was, apparently, not so easily dissuaded. It should be known, the author of this book of poetry is regularly and effortlessly seduced by such highly motivating factors as the deep-seated fear of irrelevance, barely constrained egomania, and a need for a little bit of cash.

The author of this book of poetry offers you a book of poetry unlike any you’ve read before. Or maybe it’s just like all the rest and by the time you figure that out- it will be too late.

So, what do you think?

Do you, dear reader, have the same confidence in the author of this book of poetry as he had in you while writing it?

Let’s find out.