clutching at straws

A few times now I've flagged up Enrique's Motor Lodge #22, the book of pomes by my  old friend M.P. Powers of Florida and the wonderfully-monickered Misti Rainwater-Lites of Texas.

I'm not in the habit of rubbing shoulders with the writers of the stuff I read. Many of them are dead, for one thing. So it's a new experience to read the work of someone I know fairly well, Powers having been on my radar since about 1998. He writes easy, simple and tough lines. Even if you don't have the added enjoyment of working out which bits of his stuff are rooted in the truths of his life story, I'd say anyone that likes the stuff I put here would also dig the Powers style. Misti's stuff is good, too. Raw, rough, painful splinters of poesy. Works for me. So get yerself a copy, why dontcha?

Powers has been kind enough to suggest I do as he often does - submit bits to the various online and printed small press writing sites, zines and whatnot. I don't really know where to start, because I only thought of making this blog on a whim pretty recently, and have always tended to stay away from anything resembling a 'scene' (not just in the writing sense). I'm not a joiner, I suppose. That said, I took note of the places where Powers has had work accepted and on another whim fired off a little selection of bits to Shawn Misener's Clutching at Straws.

Misener got back to say he likes one of the pieces and that I should expect to see it there in the next couple of weeks. So look out for that and, in the meantime, have a browse of the many, many other bits Shawn has accepted over the lifetime of his site. He says he loves poetry that is strange, head-scratching, absurd, and hilarious and that he'll take a look at anything that's refreshing and forces the reader to read it again in order to soak it up. "No rules," says Misener  "If you rhyme, it better be damn funny." So have a look.