Tell us the story of your Accents Publishing book, GOODBYE, BABY.

The genesis of the poems is as transparent at it seems: the frail and painful final weeks of my beloved dog Lucy and the months of grieving that followed her death.

What do you like most about it?

“Like” perhaps isn’t the word to use in the context of this book, but writing it provided an
outlet that I apparently needed during those sad, angry, helpless, terrifying days.

What did you have to overcome in order to finish and publish the book?

I was writing compulsively over the course of those months, and at some point it
occurred to me that the poems might constitute a book. That was a by-product, not an
initial goal. One element unique to this collection is that I’d never before written a book
dictated by form. All of the poems are twelve lines and untitled. The latter seemed a
self-evident decision. These were intimate, compressed poems, on-going and in
conversation with one another, and individual titles seemed too much of a … what,
pronouncement? Too sharp a demarcation from piece to piece. The more arbitrary
choice—and I don’t recall how or why the idea came to me—was the restriction of the
twelve-line structure, which ultimately served several purposes. For one, each poem
was a puzzle for me to solve, to expand or more often contract to a contained,
companionable size. I was desperate for both distraction and for some semblance of
control in a world we’d lost control of.

What do you hope people learn/receive/experience from reading your book?

I’m suspicious of wanting anyone to “learn” anything from a sequence of poems, but
these are obviously close to the heart, so I’m gratified that folks seem moved by them.
Every poem in the book, by the way, however seemingly far-ranging in tone or subject,
is actually about Lucy and losing her. Stating the obvious, perhaps. Trust me.

What was your favorite interaction with a reader and/or a fan?

In the context of GOODBYE, BABY? Well, the book’s only recently published, but it’s been
more pleasant than I expected to get emails from friends—friends from different periods
of my life and vastly different contexts—whom I haven’t been in touch with for years or
even decades. I’ve been living an increasingly withdrawn and private life, so a few
knocks on the door from the outside world, some friendly overtures from the past, are
okay.

What are you working on now? Catch us up one significant event in your life since the publication of GOODBYE, BABY.

Another book of poems, Negotiable Gods, is coming out later in 2026, of this book’s
heels. It contains pieces written during the three-four years before the intense period
that generated Goodbye, Baby. So, the books are appearing out of order, which
disconcerts me a bit, although I suppose no one will notice or care. Aside from writing,
I’m looking forward, if I ever have the chutzpah to retire, to getting back to drawing,
painting, working with clay.

A significant event?

I just put down a sizeable deposit on a trip a year from now, swimming with humpback whales for a week in the Dominican Republic. We’ll see if I have the nerve, or the body, to go through with it. Not a bad way to die, though—slapped unconscious by an errant flipper and returned to the dark, cold depths whence I came! I hereby leave all my posthumous poems to Accents.