A fully-prose-poem issue, DMQ Review’s Fall 2024 Issue has poems from so many poets that I greatly admire (hero status), and I am so honored to have a poem appearing on screens, pages, devices (?) alongside them!

“Stuck Inside” is a piece that is so dear to me because it is one of my first explorations into prose poetry and was written during one of Jose Hernandez Diaz’s prose poetry workshops (which I highly recommend). This poem was inspired by James Tate’s “Bounden Duty”, which struck me as the poetic embodiment of paranoia. I started thinking about ways to fully capture other psychological states and, writing this poem on an airplane, anxiety naturally bullied its way to the front.

You can read “Stuck Inside” and all of the Fall 2024 Issue of DMQ Review here.

On a lighter, or perhaps subtly sweet, note my thoughts on iced green tea appear in the Fall 2024 issue of Monterey Poetry Review, highlighting food and memory and food.

(for reference I’m drinking the Costco brand)

Luna Husam Abu Nada: “Luna, the youngest and most cherished member of the family, was smart, mischievous, and brought joy to our home with her laughter and playfulness. She made everything beautiful around her.” – Martyrs of Gaza

I created this poster on April 17, 2024 (Palestinian Prisoners’ Day) to support the plight of Layan Nasir, 21 year old university student, who was abducted by the Israeli military from her home at gunpoint and is being held indefinitely without charge or trial. More about the cruel, undemocratic and apartheid practice of “administrative detention” can be found here.

Hind was a six-year-old girl, whose story gained international attention when she was the sole survivor of an Israeli tank shelling on the Kia she and her aunt, uncle and four cousins were riding in. Hind’s call for help with members of the @palestineredcrescent detailed how the family was targeted by the Israeli military, leaving her alone with the dead bodies of her family members for hours, telling medical personnel, “I’m so scared, please come” and that she (like most kids) was afraid of the dark. Eventually, all contact with Hind was lost.

Although two Red Crescent Society members tried to reach Hind, they too were found dead several days later. News reports show the Red Crescent was able to get within meters of the family’s car before also being targeted by a tank, despite clearly being marked as medical personnel.

Thank you to @palestinianmartyrs and @martyrs_gaza for sharing their stories. Go to https://palestinianmartyrs.org/ or https://ourgaza.com/martyrs/ for more stories of the now over 30,000 martyrs.

Published in the Fall 2023 Issue of Caustic Frolic (the journal of the NYU Graduate School of Experimental Humanities & Social Engagement), “The Last Abduction” is a short story that reflects on the experiences of an alien & a young boy, coming to terms with hyper-militarization in the West Bank.

Read the full story here. CW: depictions/allusions to graphic violence/death.

One interesting thing about the inspiration of this story, the artist Ampydoo (Alan Michael Parker) put out a call for drawings of aliens, and I drew one up on my iPad (above). Then I naturally started thinking about this alien (as one does) and the backstory to his life. I also happened to need to write a short story for my summer 2023 term fiction writing workshop (at UCF). Thankfully, my car needed service and there were no loaners available. “The Last Abduction” was borne from a mix of being trapped in the car dealership with way too much gratis coffee and Lotus biscuits (so good!). Given the subject-nature, I am so thankful that the editors and team at Caustic Frolic saw something special and chose to stand behind this story, particularly at this time when the efforts to silence voices in the Palestinian liberation movement are particularly strong.

Published in Cordite Poetry Review’s pop culture issue, “In case I say no to someone at the reveal of Love is Blind” reflects on expectations, results, sounds & how weird it was to see young Sean Connery for the first time. Read it here!

This was a fun one to write. Picture it: You’re sitting at a picnic table in a forest of creaky pine trees. Your kids are playing “baseball” with a stick in the yard between “leaf parties” and you’re working on a poem for your poetry workshop. Not sure where it is going or how to wrap up the last stanza, your spouse (who’s working on a speech) walks out and says the most random thing that miraculously pulls the whole thing together. Sometimes it really is just like that.

Follow the Insurgence on Substack (who will bring a little joy to your inbox daily) here.

Maybe I should have posted my Mother’s Day coloring sheet in advance of Mother’s Day like The Daily Drunk did here, but like I said I love updating my website for the year in one sitting. This is so great! Biggest blast!

Thankfully, my son was able to access it online, print it out, color, frame and so graciously surprise-gift it to me for Mother’s Day this year. Kids are the best!

Is this petty? Maybe, but it was my last resort. Read it and understand (if not weep):