We all are somewhat Michigander.

This is Lake Michigan. It's big. Usually loud. And occasionally full of seagulls.

This is Michigander. It's big. Usually loud. And occasionally full of seagulls.

It is with much pride and great thanks to Greying Ghost Press, that I announce the release of my first chapbook, Michigander. These look great. Really. I never, ever, could have imagined this poem looking this cool.

From GG: "Michigander is a treasure map buried in the backseat of a Lake Michigan Buick. Each line, each word sluices across the page a clue to the next. No trickery for gamesmanship. A phenomenal new voice from the throat of a straight-shooting riser. Quit hitting the snooze and wake up to this already."

From me: This poem is a pleading to Chicago. This poem is a wallowing in unemployment. But most of all this poem is a riverboy wondering where his banks have gone. I wrote this poem in the Fall of 2007 between filling out job applications, and after embarrassingly bad job interviews (actual question fielded from interviewer, "Do you even know what you're doing here?"). It's that kind of poem...

The book is dedicated to my wife, Anne, but here and now I'd like to thank Jon Barrett, for telling two (3?) years ago that this could be something and then for reminding me last fall that I'd once written something that could have been something. AND, thanks to Elizabeth Robinson for taking a peek at a re-worked version a few weeks later and rubbing her shammy cloth of genius across the smudges. And finally to Carl, who accepted the poem as a pamphlet and took it upon himself to see it as a chapbook. Thank you.

I'm gushing, I know. It's geeky, I know. But I don't have 5 books out. I have one. And you can buy it here.