Let our scars fall in love - Galway Kinnell *****
I never write in the daytime. It's like running through the shopping mall with your clothes off. Everybody can see you. At night...that's when you pull the tricks...magic. - Charles Bukowski ****** "A fella ain't got a soul of his own, but on'y a piece of a big one...then I'll be around in the dark. I'll be ever'where - wherever you look." - J. Steinbeck (Grapes of Wrath) ***** "The cat'll sleep in the mailbox and we'll never go to town, till we bury every dream in the cold cold ground." -- Tom Waits *****
"Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat."
- Robert Frost *****
“Poetry is an echo, asking a shadow to dance.” - Carl Sandburg
*****
For those who believe in God, most of the big questions are answered. But for those of us who can't readily accept the God formula, the big answers don't remain stone-written. We adjust to new conditions and discoveries. We are pliable. Love need not be a command or faith a dictum. I am my own God. We are here to unlearn the teachings of the church, state, and our educational system. We are here to drink beer. We are here to kill war. We are here to laugh at the odds and live our lives so well that Death will tremble to take us. - Charles Bukowski
*****
A poet is an unhappy being whose heart is torn by secret sufferings, but whose lips are so strangely formed that when the sighs and the cries escape them, they sound like beautiful music... and then people crowd about the poet and say to him: "Sing for us soon again;" that is as much as to say, "May new sufferings torment your soul." ~Soren Kierkegaard
*****
If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it.- Anais Nin
*****
The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars - Jack Kerouac
Music
Jazz or classical while writing. Tom Waits, The Replacements, Paul Westerberg, Tom Petty, Spoon, Miles Davis, Ryan Adams, Jeff Buckley, Interpol, Old 97's, Beck, The Tallest Man on Earth, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Rolling Stones, Beatles, Led Zep, The Kills, Clash, early Weezer, Eels, Okkervil River, early AC/DC, Gaslight Anthem, The Velvet Underground, The Stills, Toadies, Kings of Leon, Pete Yorn, Dean Martin, etc, etc, blah blah blah. NPR is a must.
Movies
I'm a fan of classic films. Any movie with Humphrey Bogart: Casablanca, Key Largo, Sahara, To Have and Have Not, The Big Sleep, The Maltese Falcon, African Queen, etc. Most Hitchcock movies (Rear Window is genius), Brando (especially Waterfront and Wild One), Gregory Peck, Audrey Hepburn, James Dean, The Marx Brothers, anything by Wes Anderson (Darjeerling Limited is grand), some old school Indiana Jones, Star Wars (Rule #1: if it doesn't have Han Solo, it isn't a Star wars movie, at least not a good one), Charlie Brown specials, Sideways, most Scorsese films, There Will Be Blood, No Country For Old Men, The Motorcycle Diaries, Reservoir Dogs, Back to the Future, Adventureland, Little Miss Sunshine, Rocket Science, anything with Will Ferrell, Kelly's Heroes, Dirty Harry, Zodiac, Good Night and Good Luck, Oh Brother Where Art Thou?, a random assortment of foreign films, B-horror films, silent films, short films, and documentaries. A western now and again as well, Wayne or Eastwood. I'm a guy, and it can't be helped.
Television
I killed my TV before it killed me...though I do watch pro basketball when I can.
Books
Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S Thompson, John Steinbeck, Joseph Heller, Donald Hall, Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Carson McCullers, Mickey Spillane, Kurt Vonnegut, Ernest Hemingway, William Kennedy, J. D. Salinger, William Carlos Williams, Li Po, Ray Bradbury, David Eggers, Pablo Neruda, Jonathan Lethem, Sylvia Plath, Carl Sandburg, Edgar Allen Poe, Robert Louis Stevenson, Thoreau, Emerson, Douglas Adams, JRR Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander, Raymond Carver, Stephen King, Shakespeare (to a degree), George Orwell, H.G. Wells, Lewis Carroll, Tom Robbins, Joyce Carol Oates, Margaret Atwood, and many more.
About me: A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure. I take writing seriously, but not so much life in general. I hail from New York but currently reside in squalor in the southwest. I'm a hermit, granted a rather social one at times, and I prefer a good book, a stout drink, and a productive night of writing to most other things. I'm also one of the editors of Hobo Camp Review: poetry & prose from the road, a gathering place for the transient storyteller. Give it a look and submit your work! I just finished a second novel and I have a new collection of poetry called "Maybe a Bird Will Sing" from Bird War Press. My other three collections are Ballast, Thrift Store Majestic, and Welcome to the night shift and you can find them all at my website - www.jhdwriting.com. My poems have been welcomed by Reed Magazine, Slipstream, Plainsongs, The Homestead Review, The Battered Suitcase, The Cartier Street Review, Up the Staircase, Zygote In My Coffee, 3:AM Magazine, Red Fez, Glass: a journal of poetry, Poetry Salzburg Review, The Aurorean, The Unrorean, Full of Crow, The Toronto Quarterly, Clockwise Cat, Covert Poetics, Gutter Eloquence Magazine, Thick With Conviction, Rural Messengers Press (Side of Grits), Jones AV., Heroin Love Songs, Breadcrumb Scabs, Calliope Nerve, Ward 6 Review, decomP, Void Magazine, Motel 58, Pennine Ink, Drown In My Own Fears, Dark Party Review, and The Culture Star Reader, to name a few. I enjoy road stories, train hopping, car trips, planes, boats, subways, scooters, wine tastings, old movies, eating in, eating out, ghost hunting, reading poetry in the tub, bumming around in bookstores, diners, and pubs, writing snail mail, playing chess or darts, napping (a lot), and typing deep into the night with a good bottle of one sort or another by my side. Oh, and I can outcook your mother on Thanksgiving with my eyes closed. Yeah, it's like that. Stay tuned for excerpts of my works, publishing updates, and other assorted tid-bits. Please: DO NOT advertise your books in my comments section without asking. I don't do it to you, don't do it to me. And please don't leave glittery holiday comments on my page, especially if that is the only time I ever hear from you. Thanks.
Who I'd like to meet: Tom Waits reads "Nirvana," by Charles Bukowski...
I'm not as funny as you think I am. I'm not as talented or boorish as you think I am. I'm not as dull or handsome or pathetic or genius as you think I am. I'm not as witless or caustic or drunk or deep or childlike or angry or lost or gallant or blase or broken or karma or happy or hungry as you think I am. I am more so. You just can't see it. In other news, I'm always open to meeting fellow artists, poets, writers, and readers of anything. Drop me a line any time you wish.
awww chilly willy... you know, five days of beach clothes are not enough at the beach let alone beyond. Remind me to tell you about the smelly rags of Phuket sometime. It's weird with you being on the road so much... it seems quiet. Come HOME honey, the baby needs you to bring it some milk! It won't stop cryin!
just finished reading "Maybe a Bird Will Sing"...great chap, buddy! some of my personal favorites from the collection are "you just don't know", "the last tree at golden gate" and the title poem "maybe a bird will sing"...
My literary magazine, The Toronto Quarterly - Issue 2 and 3 are now available at amazon.com. There's some great poetry in each issue along with some cool interviews with up and coming and more established poets. Here is the link:
Cold digs. Anytime my friend. I would like to publish a chap myself sometime soon, but I want to distribute a few more of my poems first. The world of writing is slow. But great.
Congrats on the new book. Glad someone is enjoying the sun, it's been raining here in Maryland. Any other exciting plans for the summer other than hitting the road?
Online Now!
