Friend and prime motivator Jim Behrle will hopefully post a link. So, for all those clicking on, going, "who the hell is this geek?" among other things, a brief intro:

I'm a 30-year-old New England native living in South Boston. I have been a poet since the age of 17 and a good one for maybe the last five or so years. I've been published in a good number of places outside of the school journals I contributed to while at Framingham State College and Emerson College, where my MFA poetry thesis was praised by Bill Knott, who headed my committee. Yes, THE Bill Knott. And yes, I have stories. Some other time.

Freak Machine Press is my psuedo-business, first used when I self-published my chapbook this past March. First thought up after pondering an (incomplete) Andy Warhol quote: "I want to be a machine." The term became a title of a failed humor magazine at Emerson and then a really bad poem. Self-Portrait In Fire was the name of my thesis and later my chapbook (still available).

Though Jim Behrle and I never hang after work, I consider him a better friend than I deserve. He kept me in print via his old Meanie journal and then later in can we have our ball back? This year, he wrote the intro to my book and encouraged me to submit to Pindeldyboz. He could give his projects even nastier names than 70 Foot Rotating Dildo, and I'd submit.

This past year, my motivation was kicked into overdrive due to happenings and revelations in my personal life. Prior to 2002, My output dwindled to writing one poem a year. This year, I've risen my productivity level 10,000% past that, and it feels great.

Things are slowing down, though. My last feature was last month. Changing my focus from online publicatons to print ones has made the waiting process gruelingly slow. Slower than what I'm used to, given the online publicaitons' quick reaction time. For the past two years, I've been going to open mic slam venues, which my work seems ill-suited for. I've tried the "page" and "stage" communities, and though there are outstanding people in both corners, nothing's been a comfortable fit.

This blogspot is my last chance to find like-minded people to communicate with. If that fails, it's an excuse to banter with Jim and Aaron and other people I've been fortunate to meet via online communities and Jim's circle of power. Also, it's an opportunity to sell books and self-promote (I have interviews and other projects in the works, including a comics collaboration with artist friend James Conant).

As I want people to check out my book and other places where I'm published (Including websites), I'm loath to start publishing poems of my own here, though it is possible, given that I'm writting more and more each day, getting closer and closer to the productivity level I had back when I was in college. Love to find out if this place counts as a publicaiton or not.

That's about it for now. Questions are welcome. Requests for me to post links to your blog will be considered. Thanks for stopping by.