I Stopped to Know Where to Go

I have finished with the first long poem borrowing from The Shrubberies until "Adam". This created 32 poems for me--which will be Inside the Shrubberies.

As I am discovering my own queerness, as a poet in Topeka I am returning to Ronald Johnson--both in words and location. He worked in Ward-Meade Park here until his death where he wrote The Shrubberies. I wanted to continue “the work that needs done” for both poetry and LGBTQ+ equality. With book in hand, I wrote these poems at Ward-Meade Park and inside the Park of my mind when I couldn’t be there. This is a journey through October, through queer spaces, through finding the mystical in garden and mythos.

I am also developing Queer Spaces of Topeka--five or six poems, for Queer Creatures of Kansas.

I am pretty happy with these two chapbooks which I will be sending out soon.