Just sharing that my newest poetry book “The Shouldspeak Disease” is out now, from Naked Bulb Press. After a busy trip of readings on the west coast during the summer, I am back in the LV and happy to share both the trip and the poetry with you. This is awkward, as I manage this website, but I hope that you won’t mind me telling you about this because it is a project that has been dear to my heart. Many of you locally have heard these poems in their various forms, before the edited version. The theme evolved out of thoughts on the language of shame and how the “shoulds” in society creep into our conversations and bind with the inner monologue. We are conditioned to compare, to react to the judgments of Shouldspeak. We are conditioned to think that the narrative set out by others for our lives constitutes a list of things that we SHOULD be doing. We are self critical, and we are diminished. Shouldspeak is toxic and it eats us.
It was important for me to write about this, and to share it, because when I read my poems about shame and expectations, people often come up after and say that they know how this feels. They can relate to what I am saying and have been hurt by this, even when struggling to slough it off. They have discovered that it has taken a hold of them, mingled with their insides. They know exactly what I mean.
It was important to me to give this dynamic a name, specific to shaming language. It was important for me to keep talking about it, and to connect with people who live it. The editors at Naked Bulb Press, poets Missy Church, Andrew J. Thomas, and Paul Corman-Roberts, understood what I wanted to convey and they believed in it enough to support the poems. Moly Tov, talented artist and poet, provided the cover image that I believe conveys the physical embodiment of the experiences explored.
If you want one, let me know (contact) and I will get it to you. You can also go through Amazon here.
