Wednesday, September 23, 2015

My Beat Attitude Chapbook Released by NightBallet

My new book, Beat Attitude, was released on September 17th, my 49th birthday, by NightBallet Press, and made its public debut Saturday the 19th during BeatStreet Cleveland. I'm thrilled with how artfully editor Dianne Borsenik put it together. Beat Attitude is 32 pages and features 23 poems, bound with a pale ivory cover emblazoned with Kevin Eberhardt art and a burnt orange card stock insert. And it's only 5 dollars!

In response to it, Tom Kryss says, "Burroughs takes up the sledgehammer lying at the base of the wall, and like a tray of glassware hurtling down an elevator shaft, centrifugally levitated, romances blown sunflowers forever drawn to the guard rails."

I began a few of these poems as early as 1997, the year William S. Burroughs and Allen Ginsberg passed away. Most were written much more recently. All were either inspired by the Beats and their contemporaries or have a related heartbeat.

I hope you'll order a copy online or see me and pick one up at one of these upcoming events:

10/1/2015 - Caryl Pagel & John Burroughs read at the Literary Cafe in Cleveland.
10/15/2015 - Dianne Borsenik & John Burroughs read at the Root Cafe in Cuyahoga Falls.
10/31/2015 - Poet's Haven Halloween Jubilee at Oak Knoll Park in Massillon.
11/7/2015 - Meet the Presses at the Sigmond Sanger Branch Library in Toledo.

Poems included in Beat Attitude are:

Divided, We Fall Together
Unfinished
Allen Ginsberg Wants You
Orlovsky
Magnetic Repulsion
Hopper
Primacy
Pullet
Inner Expedition
Holy Sheet
Call of Poetry
A Cross Tic
To a Fruit
Reapetition
In Due Season
Aye, Pod
Baloney
LadySings
From BS to BA
More, Man
Mastering Ascension
Cannot Believe William S. Burroughs Is Dead
Invocation

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3 comments:

  1. Everything really comes together in this book, John. Your attitudes & beatitudes. Your sensuality & spirituality. Vision & revisions & nary a skipped beat.The never ending road captured for a moment in blood & ink.Congratulations.

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Kevin, for your attentive reading, kind words, perfect cover art, and friendship.

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