Tag Archives: books

Mid-Week Bukowski

I am reading Charles Bukowski’s The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951–1993 and wanted to share some poems that struck me. Bukowski’s reputation as a sexist, hard-drinking, gambling poet of the underground is accurate. However, he also has a tender side, which he demonstrates in this collection. Some of the poems deal with his cancer diagnosis and impending death. He died of leukemia in 1994 at the age of 73.

Mind and Heart

unaccountably we are alone
forever alone
and it was meant to be
that way,
it was never meant
to be any other way–
and when the death struggle
begins
the last thing I wish to see
is
a ring of human faces
hovering over me–
better just my old friends,
the walls of my self,
let only them be there.

I have been alone but seldom
lonely.
I have satisfied my thirst
at the well
of my self
and that wine was good,
the best I ever had,
and tonight
sitting
staring into the dark
I now finally understand
the dark and the
light and everything
in between.

peace of mind and heart
arrives
when we accept what
is:
having been
born into this
strange life
we must accept
the wasted gamble of our
days
and take some satisfaction in
the pleasure of
leaving it all
behind.

cry not for me.

grieve not for me.

read
what I’ve written
then
forget it
all.

drink from the well
of your self
and begin
again.

Cancer

half past nowhere
alone
in the crumbling
tower of myself

stumbling in this the
darkest
hour

the last gamble has been
lost

as I
reach
for

bone
silence.

So Now?

The words have come and gone,
I sit ill.
The phone rings, the cats sleep.
Linda vacuums.
I am waiting to live,
waiting to die.

I wish I could ring in some bravery.
It’s a lousy fix
but the tree outside doesn’t know:
I watch it moving with the wind
in the late afternoon sun.

There’s nothing to declare here,
just a waiting.
Each faces it alone.

Oh, I was once young,
Oh, I was once unbelievably
young!

Bukowski, Charles. The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951–1993. Edited by John Martin, Ecco, 2007.

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Senior Moment

The Central New York magazine 55 Plus recently did a nice feature article about me. You can read it here.

And yesterday, I participated in a local author “meet and greet” event at the Barnes and Noble store in Dewitt. I had the pleasure of meeting fellow author and leadership expert Julie Ann Whitten, who wrote The People Stack: Why Change Fails (and What Actually Fixes It)

A co-worker took this photo of me at the Barnes and Noble store in Dewitt.

We didn’t get a lot visitors stopping by our table, but I enjoyed talking to Julie and sharing stories about our publication journeys.

I also had to take a photo of some wall art in the in-store Starbucks. This image depicts one of my favorite authors, Langston Hughes.

And speaking of poets and poetry, I am currently reading The Pleasures of the Damned: Poems, 1951-1993 by Charles Bukowski. This brief piece of text by Buk rings true for me:

“Poetry”

It
takes
a lot of
desperation,
dissatisfaction,
and
disillusion
to
write
a
few
good
poems.

It’s not
for
everybody
either to
write
it
or even to
read
it.

 

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Accepting Limitations

This past Thursday, July 30, I held a local author talk and Q-and-A at Utica Public Library on Genesee Street in Utica, New York. Two senior citizens attended, and their presence pleased me because as the time for the 6 p.m. event drew near, I thought no one would show up.

Utica Public Library exterior. Photo by Kenneth C. Zirkel.

The talk was held in the Music Room on the second floor of the brick Neoclassical building erected in the early 1900s. I took an Uber because I was nervous about getting lost in Utica (as I had so often done in my youth when traveling to the city from my nearby hometown of Rome). As we traversed eastbound along the New York State Thruway, the Uber driver and I had a nice conversation. He’s a retired journalist and corporate communications professional who still does freelance work. We discussed the decline of journalism, the state of higher education, and writers we admire, including Stephen King and Richard Russo.

I arrived shortly after 3:30 p.m., and an easel displaying a large poster board with my book cover image greeted me as I entered the library. Flyers were also posted. The library was busy with mothers and their children perusing and checking out books and some adults using the computer room.

I introduced myself to the staff member who reserved the space and booked the event for me. She directed me to the second floor. I walked around for a bit, then headed upstairs, passing through an art gallery on the second floor and gazing at works by local artists hanging on the walls.

As the afternoon wore on, I debated going outside to walk along Genesee Street, maybe stopping at a Starbucks or another coffee shop. But I didn’t want to leave my books behind, and I didn’t want to carry my heavy book bag. I also had some trepidation about the safety of the neighborhood, so I stayed inside.

I set up my books on a long table at the front of the Music Room, answered work emails and Teams messages, and read the books I had brought—the novel Tepper Isn’t Going Out by Calvin Trillin (paperback), the memoir Educated by Tara Westover (paperback), and A Deadly Shade of Gold by John D. MacDonald (Kindle). The AC was blasting, the movement of cold air murmuring, and I had to keep my raincoat on the whole time because I was freezing.

Utica Public Library interior. Photo by Francis DIClemente.

After using the restroom on the first floor, I was excited to find my book in the library’s general circulation, sitting on a shelf next to some other memoirs. It had a Utica Public Library stamp inside.

My memoir, Stunted, on a shelf at Utica Public Library.

Then I went upstairs and sat in the Music Room, waiting as 5:30 and then 5:45 p.m. came and went. I stood up and took some photos of the empty space and a selfie to document the “no-show” turnout.

And as I stared out the window of the library, looking at the Munson art museum across the street, I acknowledged within myself the discouragement I feel about my memoir’s reception in the world more than two months after its release.

I poured everything I had into this book, writing it over the course of ten years while working a full-time day job and managing family responsibilities. And while I never expected a TED Talk or a Today show appearance to follow the release of my memoir, it’s disheartening that events have been sparsely attended and I remain stuck on four reviews on Amazon (although they have been positive). Even more so, I thought the book’s universal message of self-acceptance would resonate with a wide variety of readers.

But as I walked around the Music Room, the floorboards creaking beneath my feet, I tried to console myself by thinking a writer or artist’s career has ups and downs, highs and lows, and it’s all part of the journey.

I am also grateful to the people who have read the book and commented on it, the libraries and booksellers who have hosted me, and the local media outlets that have interviewed me or written stories about the book.

I also knew that my wife and son would greet me when I arrived home that night, and I would get up the next day and write before heading off to work at a job that paid my bills and provided health coverage for my family and me.

I was about to pack up my stuff and head downstairs to open the Uber app and book a ride home when a small, older man wearing a blue shirt and jeans held up by suspenders entered the Music Room and sat down. I thought, “OK, one is better than none.”

I asked, “Are you here for the reading?”

“Yes,” he said.

I introduced myself. His name was Bob. We shook hands, and we talked about the Utica area and its history. I asked Bob where the Saranac Brewery was located, and he rose and walked toward a window in the corner. I followed him, and he pointed toward the brewery in an area behind St. Joseph and St. Patrick Church, which could be seen in the distance.

At 6 p.m., I sat down and told Bob I’d read a little bit and then answer any questions he might have. I put on my reading glasses and was reading the prologue when I looked up and saw an older woman seated in the audience. I nodded and said “hello,” and she smiled. She said her name was Lorraine and she lived nearby. She had blond hair and glasses, was dressed in a black shirt and leopard-print pants, and wore a red baseball cap with a Flash Gordon lightning bolt on the front.

I was elated, and I made a point of listening to their questions and being fully present in the moment, giving my best effort for the two people who took time out of their day to attend a local author event.

And we had a pleasant conversation. They asked me about where I grew up, my educational background, medical and family history, and how long it took me to write the book. I enjoyed hearing about their lives. Lorraine claimed she owned more than four-thousand books. She also said she was born premature and the doctor who delivered her tossed her tiny body on a bed and said to Lorraine’s mother, “Don’t bother with her. She’s not gonna make it.”

Lorraine said she wanted to tell the doctor now, “I’m 77 years old, and I’m still here.”

Bob said he likes reading nonfiction, primarily autobiographies, nature books, and books about dogs. He asked me if I was Italian, and when I said, “Yes,” he told me he’s full-blooded Italian. He said he lives alone and shared details about two solo trips he took to Italy and Sicily, including how he met some distant cousins on one of the journeys.

Toward the end of our discussion, Bob asked if he could look at a book. I said, “Sure,” and he grabbed a book, flipped through it, stopping at certain pages, pointing to pictures, and asking me questions.

I felt so happy that Bob and Lorraine had rescued my night that I signed two copies of my book and gave them away to my new friends.

The experience made me think about one of my favorite scenes in the movie Vision Quest. It’s when high school wrestler Louden Swain (Matthew Modine) visits his friend, hotel worker Elmo (J.C. Quinn), who has taken the night off to watch Louden wrestle against Brian Shute, the best wrestler in the state of Washington. The writing and acting in the scene deliver such emotional power.

Louden tells Elmo that he shouldn’t have taken a night off from work because his pay would be docked, and that his six-minute wrestling match is “not that big of a deal.” Elmo gives a monologue about watching Pelé on TV during a soccer game, and he ends his speech with the line, “It ain’t the six minutes. It’s what happens in that six minutes.”

And the lesson for me is: It isn’t about how many people show up at a reading or event or the number of ratings and reviews on Amazon and Goodreads. It’s about the connection you form with the people who do read your book and attend your events.

I also thought, OK, so I’ll never win a Guggenheim fellowship, sell the movie rights to my book, be a bestselling author, or earn a living from my writing alone. Still, I can continue to write in my spare time and contribute something positive in my own small way.

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Parthenon Reading

I had a fun time at yesterday’s reading at Parthenon Books in Syracuse. The crowd was sparse, likely due to the Syracuse Arts & Crafts Festival taking place in the downtown area.

But I signed some copies of my book, Stunted: A Memoir of Delayed Manhood, which are available for sale at the store. I also caught up with a former colleague from SU, Stephen, and we chatted about poetry, writing, and film (just like we used to do in the break room at work).

And I used my store credit to purchase Calvin Trillin’s novel Tepper Isn’t Going Out.

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Upcoming Book Events

For friends and readers in the Central New York area, I have some events scheduled to promote my memoir, Stunted: A Memoir of Delayed Manhood (Toplight Books, an imprint of McFarland and Company, 2026).

I’ll be giving a reading and signing books at Parthenon Books on Salina Street in downtown Syracuse this Saturday, July 25 at 1 p.m. I’m also excited to use up $15 in store credit.

A “Local Author Talk” is scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 30 at Utica Public Library on Genesee Street in Utica.

And on Saturday, August 8, I’ll be joining other writers at a Local Author Showcase at the Barnes & Noble store in Dewitt. The time is 2 to 4 p.m.

For those unfamiliar with the book, here is a description, along with some archival photos (which appear in black and white in the book).

Overview of Stunted:

For most children, puberty marks their rite of passage into the cusp of adulthood—a time of profound physical and emotional transformation. It’s a period where they grapple with questions about identity, their place in the world, and what they desire from life’s experiences.

Here’s me, likely in the mid-1980s.

For Francis DiClemente, during his turbulent adolescent and early adult years spanning 1984 to 1995, frustration and shame consume him. When he turns fifteen, his growth stops, and he watches helplessly as his friends cross through puberty and into adulthood. Doctors diagnose him with hypopituitarism, uncovering a tumor engulfing his pituitary gland. Yet the removal of the tumor fails to fix the problem. DiClemente enters college as a youthful, androgynous figure—a prodigy sans the hyper-smarts.

During my college years, in the late 1980s.

He lags behind his male peers in every aspect—lacking the stature, hair growth, and muscle definition that come naturally to others his age. This disparity further erodes his self-confidence, particularly in his interactions with women.

When DiClemente leaves his childhood home after college and embarks on a career in journalism, he discovers a new perspective on masculinity. Living independently and embracing this responsibility, he learns that manhood is determined by behavior, not physical characteristics.

Through the lens of personal experience, Stunted: A Memoir of Delayed Manhood delves into the universal themes of belonging and resilience, providing a message of hope and inspiration for those navigating their paths of self-acceptance.

With my cousins Fiore DeCosty (left) and Derek DeCosty (standing) with our grandmother, Josephine, in the bottom right of the frame (1990).

 

 

 

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Excerpt from Stunted

With graduation party season in full swing, I thought I would share an excerpt from my recently released memoir, Stunted: A Memoir of Delayed Manhood. The excerpt covers the time period after I graduated high school from Rome Free Academy in my hometown of Rome, New York, and prepared to enter my freshman year of college. Warning: Adult content follows.

From Chapter Ten:

I graduated high school in June 1987 as a shy, sexless adolescent unprepared for the social landscape of college life. Decked out in my cap and gown, I stood a half head shorter than my mother and sister as we posed for a picture in our backyard on graduation day.

And here’s a catalog, a list of experiences I failed to check off before finishing high school, departing Rome, and heading to the campus of St. John Fisher College, a small, liberal arts college (now renamed St. John Fisher University) in Pittsford, New York, a suburb of Rochester:

I never went on any one-on-one dates.
I never bought flowers for a girl (except for one Valentine’s Day in elementary school).
I never drove a car to a girl’s house to pick her up and meet her parents—getting their permission to take her out for the night.
I never had a serious girlfriend.
I never put my arm around a girl at an RFA football game or held hands in a darkened movie
theater.
I never kissed a girl on the lips.
No fumbling with bra straps in the backseat of a car or feeling a warm breast while sitting on a couch at a house party.
I never made love in a girl’s bedroom while her parents were out of the house.

And at age eighteen, even if a girl had offered me the opportunity to have sex, I would not have known for sure where to put my penis during intercourse.

My inexperience with the opposite sex weighed on me as I spent my final summer at home. During one weekend in late August, my friend Billy and I went to McDonald’s to hang out in the Uptown area (a section of Rome where teens congregated).

On a warm, humid night, we stood in the deserted parking lot under the glow of the illuminated golden arches, talking with our friend Chad, who had ridden his bike to the area from east Rome. He was leaning on his handlebars, dressed in a white concert T-shirt, and we were talking about me going away to school. I said, “I’m a little nervous. I don’t know how it’s gonna be. I don’t know if I’ll fit in.”

“Ah, don’t worry about it, Franny,” Chad said. “You’ll get your helmet polished by the girls there.”

I had a sense he was referring to blow jobs, but I wasn’t one hundred percent sure. I gave a good laugh to cover my lack of knowledge, and said, “Thanks, Chad, I hope you’re right.”

From Chapter Eleven:

Although my parents must have sensed my unease about attending college while looking like a fourteen-year-old boy, my father offered me no advice on how to deal with it, and my mother lacked empathy for my situation. She told me to stop being sensitive when other people questioned my age. In conversations with family members, co-workers, and restaurant servers, she would say, “He gets so upset if someone asks him about his age. He has to learn to accept it.” But Mom exhibited compassion through her actions by taking me shopping in New Hartford and buying me sheets, towels, toiletries, and other essentials for college life. She taught me how to do laundry, informing me about the basics of temperature cycles and the importance of separating colors from whites, and she also made sure my financial aid paperwork was submitted on time.

As I made my final preparations before departing Rome for the fall semester in 1987, my sister Lisa allayed my fears with sage advice based on her experience as a student at Hartwick College in Oneonta. When I told her how I knew the other kids would question me because I looked so young for my age, she said, “What you have to realize about college is that everyone has something that they don’t like about themselves, something they want to hide. Some girls are fat. Some guys have acne all over their faces, or they sound effeminate. Everyone has something. You look young for your age, but so what? Don’t think you’re the only one who is different.”

It was exactly what I needed to hear. She also told me, “You’ll be fine once you make a few friends.”

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Busy Vacation

I had a busy and not-so-restful “staycation” in Syracuse this past week with events tied to the launch of my book, Stunted: A Memoir of Delayed Manhood. On Tuesday, June 23, I traveled to my hometown of Rome, New York, for a book reading at Jervis Public Library.

I hadn’t visited the city since Thanksgiving, and the maple trees were in full bloom with branches overhanging the streets in north Rome, presenting a dense, chartreuse canopy. Here’s a picture of some trees I saw near Jervis’s parking lot.

Since my dad, mother, and stepfather have all passed away, I don’t get back to the Copper City very often, and when driving northbound on Black River Boulevard or James Street, I feel more like a visitor than a native Roman. But even so, Rome will always be home to me.

I met my friend Bill Vinci (host of The Empire Plate web show) in the parking lot of Jervis, and we talked for about twenty minutes before he had to leave for a fantasy baseball meeting. It was a beautiful summer night, and attendance was sparse for the reading. But a former neighbor, some friends from high school, my brother, Dirk, and his partner, Donna, and my friend, Bill Soldato (author “Billy the Liquor Guy”) showed up, and I was able to reminisce and catch up with them.

Most of all, I was elated to be holding an event inside the confines of Jervis Public Library—reading from a book I had actually written. That’s because when I was a child, I discovered a love of books and reading at Jervis. And while I attended Mass at St. John the Baptist Church, Jervis served as my true cathedral of learning. It provided a foundation for what would become a literary life and was also a refuge, a safe space where I could escape the domestic unrest punctuated by my parents’ quarrels during my formative years.

During America’s Bicentennial year of 1976, my mother had enrolled me in a summer reading program at Jervis. I was six years old and turning seven that August. The librarian had divided the group into two teams, and we competed against each other for the book tally. I read eighteen books that summer, and I have the certificate to prove it.

While walking through the stacks before my reading, I remembered how the library had introduced me to writers like Ray Bradbury, Ernest Hemingway, John Steinbeck, Thomas Wolfe, Albert Camus, Hermann Hesse, Mark Twain, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Virginia Woolf, Charlotte Brontë, and so many others.

Later, I found some of my poetry books in Jervis’s circulating collection, resting on a shelf in the Literature section, sandwiched between poetry books written by Emily Dickinson and Ralph Waldo Emerson. I thought: “I’ll take it. Not too shabby company.”

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The following day, Wednesday, June 24, I appeared as a guest on the lifestyle show Bridge Street on WSYR-TV (NewsChannel 9).

I was nervous about the segment because it’s live television. And as a longtime video producer, I’m used to being behind the scenes during production (where I am most comfortable), not acting as a guest or interview subject. Fortunately, once a female member of the crew mic’d me up, and I sat in the guest chair, the interview with hosts Iris St. Meran and Erik Columbia lasted only about five minutes.

Here’s the link if you want to watch it.

I’m abstaining because I don’t want to torture myself. On the way home, I thought about five things I should have said that slipped my mind in the haze of the bright lights and nervous energy of live TV. And to protect my fragile self-esteem, I don’t want to see how I looked and sounded on screen, which I know goes against a book promoting self-acceptance. But as I said in the interview, self-acceptance is a daily effort (and a struggle for me).

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On Friday, June 26, I was fortunate to read some poems, along with three other poets, as a participant in Verse & Waltz: An Evening of Poetry and Brahms, presented by the Oneida Lake Arts and Heritage Center at St. David’s Parish Hall, in Fayetteville. One of the poems I read came from Stunted.

The theme of the night was “love,” and each poet was allotted about seven minutes. Because I do them so infrequently, I tend to overprepare for readings. I am apprehensive about reading my poems, and I feel the page is the primary home for my verses. I write to be read in text form, as opposed to being heard. So in getting ready for the event, I printed the poems I considered reading for the evening.

I ended up with too many options, but it was a great exercise because I edited a number of the poems—noticing in many places, the works would be much stronger if I cut lines. I also replaced words that would be difficult to pronounce; hence: clasps became clutches, aquiline became beak-like, and vestibule replaced lobby.

I read through my poems, then sat back and enjoyed the music in the second half of the program. And all the German waltzes and fine singing made me want to watch The Sound of Music again.

In preparing for the reading, I realized I have written many poems that have only been published in collections that are print on demand or had small print runs, meaning several verses have had limited release. I do submit poems to magazines and literary journals, but the fees restrict the number of submissions, and the competition for publication is also fierce.

So I’ll be going through my previous collections and publishing them as standalone posts on my blog.

Here are some poems culled from my potential reading list from Friday night. I’ll start with one that is unpublished.

The Safe

In my head
I know
the meaning
of living
is to unlock
the safe
enclosing
the heart
and give
what love
you own
to others.

I fall short—
collecting
but failing to
distribute
the love
I possess.
And so
I ask myself:
Just why am I
holding on to
all that surplus?

In Another Life

In another life,
we would have slow-danced
to Willie Nelson music
in a townie bar in the Catskills,
and made love in your father’s tool shed
on a Sunday afternoon.
In another life,
we would have been married
at sunset in Sylvan Beach, New York,
on a warm June night.

In another life,
we would have had a son named Isaac
and a daughter named Rose.

In another life,
I would have been a master pastry chef
and you a renowned neurosurgeon.

In another life,
troubles would have come,
as they always do,
but our love would have been unshaken.

In another life,
you would have been
more than just a glimpse,
a face in a car rushing by me
in the opposite direction.

(From Sidewalk Stories, Kelsay Books, 2017)

Mother at a School Bus Stop

A middle-aged woman with a white canvas coat
stands with her two young children
at a school bus stop on a misty gray morning.
The boy and girl are bundled up
and jabbering as they bounce around—
unaware that Mondays should be devoid of glee.

When the bus pulls up, the mother hugs the children.
The kids separate from her breast,
scurry up the steps and claim an empty seat up front.
The mother waves goodbye to the little faces
pressed against the window and watches
as the bus pushes away from the curb,
ejecting a thin cloud of exhaust.

The woman turns around,
waits for the traffic light to change
and then crosses the street,
marching up the block to return home.
Once there, dirty dishes, unmade beds and
cigarette butts heaped in black plastic ashtrays
demand her attention until mid-morning,
when the woman leaves the house and rushes to work.

She then counts down the hours
until the school bus returns to the curb
and her two kids hop off and leap into her arms,
almost in unison.

(From Dreaming of Lemon Trees: Selected Poems, Finishing Line Press, 2019)

Landscape

Beauty abounds.
Just look around
and you will see—
a quivering leaf,
a patch of grass,
billowing clouds,
and a slash of light
beneath the bridge.
It’s not a bad world, really—
we just need
to train our eyes
to gaze with wonder,
and marvel at the
transcendental pageantry.
It’s there before you.
But you must zoom out,
zoom out
and refocus the image.
There. Hold it.
Do you see it now?

(From Sidewalk Stories, Kelsay Books, 2017)

Vestiges

My parents are gone.
They walk the earth no more,
both succumbing to lung cancer,
both cremated and turned to ash.

With each passing year,
their images become more turbid in my mind,
as if their faces are shielded
by expanding gray-black clouds.
I try to retain what I remember—
my father’s deep-set, dark eyes and aquiline nose,
my mother’s small head bowed in thought or prayer
while smoking a cigarette in the kitchen.

I search for their eyes
in the constellations of the night sky.
I listen for their voices in the wind.
Is that Rite Aid plastic bag snapping in the breeze
the voice of my father whispering,
letting me know he’s still around …
somewhere … over there?
Does the squawking crow
perched in the leafless maple tree
carry the voice of my mother,
admonishing me for wearing a stained sweater?

Resorting to a dangerous habit,
I use people and objects as “stand-ins”
for my mother and father,
seeking in these replacements
some aspect of my parents’ identities.

A sloping, two-story duplex with cracked green paint
embodies the spirit of my father saddled with debt,
playing the lottery, hoping for one big payoff.
I want to climb up the porch steps and ring the doorbell,
if only to discover who resides there.

In a grocery store aisle on a Saturday night
I spot an older woman
standing in front of a row of Duncan Hines cake mixes.
With her short frame, dark hair, and glasses,
she casts a similar appearance to my mother.
She is scanning the labels,
perhaps looking for a new flavor,
maybe Apple Caramel, Red Velvet, or Lemon Supreme,
just something different to bake
as a surprise for her husband.
A feeling strikes me and
I wish to claim her as my “fill-in” mother.
I long to reach out to this stranger in the store,
fighting the compulsion
to place a hand on her shoulder
and tell her how much I miss her.

I fear that if my parents disappear
from my consciousness,
then I too will become invisible.
And the reality of a finite lifespan sets in,
as I calculate how many years I have left.
But I realize I am torturing myself
with this twisted personification game.
I must remember my parents are dead
and possess no spark of the living.
And I can no longer enslave them in my mind,
or try to resurrect them in other earthly forms.
I have to let them go.
I have to dismiss the need for physical ties,
while holding on to the memories they left behind.

And so on the night I see the woman
in the grocery store aisle,
I do not speak to her,
and she does not notice me lurking nearby.
But as I walk away from her,
I cannot resist the impulse to turn around
and look at her one last time—
just to make sure
my mother’s “double” is still standing there.
I want her to lift her head and smile at me,
but she never diverts her eyes
from the boxes of cake mixes lining the shelf.

(From Sidewalk Stories, Kelsay Books, 2017)

 

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Poecabulary: One Year Later

One year ago this week, I published my wacky passion project, Poecabulary, which is a minimalist poetry collection and conceptual art piece. To celebrate, I am running a free Kindle book promotion through Friday, June 5. If anyone would prefer a PDF version, please email me at ffd1284@gmail.com.

Poecabulary front cover.

This project originated with some wordplay and Photoshop edits back in 2013. And while the collection contains fewer than 700 words (across 190 pages), it took me more than ten years to curate, select, refine, and edit the 156 word pairings that comprise the book.

Here’s the back-of-the book description:

Poecabulary is a minimalist poetry collection that blurs the line between vocabulary and verse. Words appear in unexpected pairings, creating connections that surprise, challenge, and invite reflection. Each combination is a deliberate act of linguistic play, where alliteration, sound, appearance, randomness, rhyme, and meaning collide.

The author explores how similar or opposing words interact, encouraging readers to discover their interpretations and associations. Both a playful exercise and a meditation on language, Poecabulary celebrates the power and flexibility of words.

This collection will resonate with language lovers, poetry enthusiasts, and anyone curious about how words shape meaning. Sample pairings include Autistic/Artistic, Diffident/Different, Lonely/Lovely, Perfection/Perception, and Reject/Respect.

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Book Release and Giveaway

Today marks the completion of a dream with the publication of my memoir, Stunted: A Memoir of Delayed Manhood. To celebrate my publication date, I am running a Goodreads giveaway. It ends on June 1, and I’ll be giving away two signed copies of the book.

I don’t have much experience with signing books, but I have never understood the practice of authors crossing out their printed name when they sign their books. To me it feels like defacing a work of art.

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