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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My Mid-2015 Midwestern Poetry Tour

Looking at my list of upcoming readings, I think I'm gonna start calling this my Midwestern tour:

6/6 - Barberton, OH - Lake Effect Poetry Art Auction Fundraiser
6/12 - Erie, PA - Poets and Painters at PACA (where Crisis Chronicles Press will release Tracie Morell's new book, Matilda's Battle Waltz)
6/19-20 - Rockford, IL - with the Lake Effect Poetry team at Rustbelt Competition 2015 Rockford IL
6/27 - Toledo, OH - West Toledo Branch Library
7/25 - Cleveland, OH - Mad Sing You PoetryMusic Fest at the Barking Spider Tavern
8/1 - Cleveland, OH - Expedition: SPACES!!! A Journey of Words, Sights & Sounds at SPACES
8/4 - Painesville, OH - Words and Wine at Your Vine or Mine
9/19 - Cleveland, OH - BeatStreet Cleveland 2015 - The National Beat Poetry Festival (where my new chapbook, Beat Attitude, will be released by NightBallet Press)
10/15 - Cuyahoga Falls, OH - Third Thursday Poetry at The Root Cafe

Plus I'm acting as host for two more installments of the Monday at Mahall's Poetry and Prose Series in Lakewood, OH:

7/6 - Monday at Mahall's feat. Genevieve Jencson, Chuck Joy & Greg "Urban Cowboy Poet" Michaels
8/3 - Monday at Mahall's feat. Mike Finley, Danny Klecko, Marisa Moks-Unger & Tracie Morell