As I've woken up a bit recently to get back to what I truly love, poetry, editing the genre for The Nervous Breakdown (TNB), and writing with a consistency I last remember from years ago, I've had some very kind requests for me to share some of my poetry. I've decided to start with a small collection of poems that already appear on the 'net in one form or another, some of which were published in journals, and some of which I just put up myself.
"Growing up Misfit" (2010, published in TNB) I captioned this: "Uche writes a poem about his adventures constantly moving, and never fitting in." It was my debut poem on TNB, having done a lot of talking about poetry prior to publishing that. I wrote it specially for a reading at the TNB New York live event to which Kimberley kindly invited me. Look on the upper right hand of the page for an audio of my reading a somewhat older version of the poem. "Mountain Summer" and "Fever Pitch Tent" (1995, published in ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum) Soon after I graduated I took a road trip with friends, flying into Ft. Collins, Colorado, and driving to San Francisco. It is on that trip that I fell in love with Colorado and resolved to move here as soon as I could. It was a trip full of marvelous memories of friendship and adventure, which I captured in a few poems, three of which were published in ELF: Eclectic Literary Forum, my favorite poetic journal, and sadly long defunct. (BTW if anyone knows of an current journal with similar aesthetics to those established by ELF's Cynthia Erbes, please let me know). "Supermarket Perimeter" (2007, published in Fiera Lingue) As I recall I happened to be flipping channels one day and caught a bit of a reality TV show where a fitness guru was teaching a slovenly youth about eating well. She told him "the trick to supermarkets is that all the healthy food is on the outside..." That's probably a commonplace, but nothing I'd really thought of before. I was immediately struck by the idea that a modern lesson about healthy eating might be packaged so completely into the boundary of a supermarket. I was inspired to have a little fun with the phenomenon. "Carotid" (2005, unpublished) Not much really to say about this one. It just sprang from one of those magical moments."Eliot" (2005, published in Fiera Lingue) I've written several poems about major influences in my poetical career, and one of these concerns T.S. Eliot, who is a most ambiguous figure for me, as reflected in this poem, and as I've often mentioned here on Copia. I've put a lot into study of his impeccable craft, but as a Humanist I find myself appalled by his misanthropy (and its apparent wellspring in misogyny and other bigotries). "Sappho and Old Age" (2010, published in TNB) We have weekly features in the TNB poetry section. One week we learned that our scheduled feature had fallen through. I'm not sure what possessed me (rimshot) but I decided to build a feature around my translation of Sappho's Tithonus poem, which I squeezed into the two days prior to deadline. Here are some more notes on the effort. I have a few more poems coming out here and there in a month or two, and I'll post links in comments as they emerge. I really haven't been submitting my poems about (it's just so much work to pile upon everything else I juggle), and this year's opportunities have pretty much fallen in my lap. I guess I should get around to finding at least a little time for the submissions grind.