Chapbook – “The Rust Belt MRI”

A chapbook available from the illustrious Pudding House.  Or you can email me at monkey6079_at_gmail_dot_com and I’ll ship you an autographed copy at no extra charge (that is, for cover price: $10)!

The intention was a sort of palimpsest:  a narrative of rust-belt/working-class culture overlaid with a narrative of dealing with cancer.

Sample Poem:

The Rust Belt MRI (originally appeared in the Blue Collar Review)

After a routine check-up
revealed a raised PSA count,
and a subsequent biopsy
revealed the existence
of cancer cells multiplying
in my father’s prostate,
he had an MRI taken
to see if the cells had spread.
Because he lives in Canton, OH
the nurse in radiology had to stop
and ask him if he had ever been
a steelworker.  Tiny flecks
of metal embedded in the skin
would distort the magnetic
resonance.  I have to stop
here and note how the nurse
asked him in past tense,
if he had ever been a steelworker,
because she knows
that around town, unemployment
numbers have grown
faster than cancer cells.
I have to stop and recall
that one of my grandmothers lives
in Pittsburgh, where she pronounces
steel like still, an adjective,
as in silence, the lack
of movement or progress.
The other lives in Youngstown,
pronouncing it as I do, like the verb
to steal.  As in theft, embezzlement,
the scene of a crime.
As in something valuable
that could be taken away.

Some of the other poems in this collection can be read online in the following journals: Deep Cleveland, CounterPunch, Pemmican, and Eclectic Flash.

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