2.14.2025

A VALENTINE'S DAY PREVIEW OF MY NEW COLLECTON

In the spirit of the day, I am sharing a poem from my collection Mortal Sugar: Poems in the Key of Lotería, forthcoming this summer from Monday Editions, the zine/comics/poetry micropress I’ve been operating since the early 1990s. Mortal Sugar, rooted in conceptual poetic practice, consists of 54 poems limited to 54 syllables, each poem responding to one of the images on the 54 cards of the traditional Mexican lotería, a game of chance that resembles bingo and, like bingo, has its origins in the Italian High Renaissance. As a gesture toward the mostly rhyming proverbs and other sayings printed on the lotería cards, most of the poems have an identifiable rhyme scheme, however irregular or slant. In addition to 55 full-color illustrations, the book includes a short introductory essay, a hallmark of the Monday Editions chapbook.

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THE ROSE

Come into my heart.

We are anther and stigma,
filament and style
holding us apart.

Come like the lacewing, like dew.
Come deep, like Hypnos
returned to his cave.

Come volatile. Come heat, breath
of June. Come rogue wave,
little death.

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Also forthcoming from Monday Editions, with a publication date of published on June 16, 2025, is The Fourteen Thieves & Body Cams, an innovative, voice-driven microchapbook by Portland poet

James Maynard

, who writes And Now, A Sonnet on Substack.

Stay tuned as publication day approaches for both books Mortal Sugar.

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Happy Valentine’s Day to those who have the great good fortune of celebrating in the conventional ways, and to those who are blessed with a heart broken wide open to the world. Much chocolate, only the best, to everyone.