Last year at this time, I made it my goal to produce four poems each month. They didn’t have to be good, but they did have to be complete–I had to see them through from start to some kind of finish. I made a folder on my computer for each month of the year, and in each I resolved to transcribe and revise four things …
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Here is another recording of me reading from the new chapbook. This poem imagines Keats, after spending the night reading passages from Chapman’s translation of Homer, walking home to write his famous sonnet, “On First Looking into Chapman’s Homer.”
Here is audio of me reading a poem from my chapbook, History Here Requires Balboa. This poem takes up an apocryphal story of Montezuma’s death at the hands of Cortez: death by molted gold down the throat. While that’s probably not how he died–many scholars think he was stoned to death by his own people after Cortez took him prisoner–the image of such an execution marries …
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When I was in college, I happened to be in an astronomy class when a partial solar eclipse took place over western Pennsylvania. The strange shadows cast during such an event stuck with me for the many years since. My poem about the event was published in The Southern Review in the fall. Here’s audio of me reading it.
I have two readings in St. Louis in February.
On Monday, February 1, I’ll be reading, along with my good friend Chuck Sweetman, as a part of the Observable Reading Series. 7:30 at Dressel’s, 419 N. Euclid Ave in the Central West End.
Two weeks later, I’ll be flying solo at the Monday Noon Series at UMSL. Feb 15, 12:15 PM, Gallery 210.
Come one, …
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Click here to find two poems about old movies, kindly published by Diode.
I have a poem a recent issue of Valparaiso Poetry Review.
Two recent poems are up at Blackbird, the fine (electronic) magazine out of VCU. Check them out here.
My poem about the story of Abraham and Isaac was published in Confrontation.
Here’s a poem up in Cumberland River Review. And here’s another.
My …
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In the fall, I recorded audio of two poems published in The Southern Review. Here’s one, “You Fell Forward on Both Knees.” It’s based on a nasty fall my wife took while we were walking our dog at night. Not discussed in the poem is the fact that our dogs don’t walk nicely on the leash. They pull and pull.
When I joined the faculty at UMSL, it seemed like an opportune time make a website–suddenly, instead of mere self-indulgence, an author site would support my writing and my program, building (I hope) the profile of both. Plus, I got a raise.
I want to make a note or two here about two creative-types who made this whole thing happen. First, Josh McCall, who …
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Shane Seely directs the MFA program at the University of Missouri–St. Louis. He was born in 1972 along the Grand Army of the Republic Highway, beneath a sky draped by the Milky Way. He was educated in Pennsylvania and Kansas before attending the MFA program at Syracuse University, where he met his wife. In 2002, they moved to St. Louis, and Shane began teaching as …
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