Doug Draime...

I was really jazzed to discover that late, small press legend, Doug Draime has a website. Now people everywhere can continue to marvel at his terrific body of work. Doug was a truly interesting person, one who lived many lives, experienced the highs and lows and knew it all well enough to report back from the hard, sad, dumb, and beautiful front lines of the human experiment. He seemed driven by a deep need to push and constantly create and probably threw away more great poems than I’ll ever write. There’s no one label or box you can stick his work in, and he was ever restless as a creator and artist. I miss his emails, his insights…and I really miss seeing new poems pop up every few weeks. I am glad to know things are still churning, and if you don’t know Doug’s work — do yourself a favor and go read yourself some.

I was equally delighted to find that Doug’s terrific short story, “Joe’s Smoke & News” is now FREE over at smashwords. It was published by mendicant bookworks — which put out a handful of great little yarns some years back, including THIS ONE (wink!).

A Tough Year For Poets...

I've been gutted, recently, by the loss of some great writing talent -- and I'm still getting used to the idea that there won't be many new books from them. Harry Calhoun, Doug Draime, and Dan Fante all recently passed...all of whom have more than a few books sitting on my shelves.

I knew Harry a little, trading emails, and once even sharing time on a Blogtalk Radio show. Doug was one of my poetry heroes--someone who wrote poems in endless styles, and on endless subjects...all of them running from insightful to profane. Dan Fante, son of legendary writer John Fante, and a damn talented writer in his own right, was a kind supporter of many young writers, and was a man I very much hoped to meet one day.

So, yeah, it's been a tough year for poets.

If I have a take-away from all this, I'd say this is it: Do your best to do beautiful things while you can. It gives tremendous meaning to lives that get foolishly complicated by the more mundane business of living.

Okay fallen poets, you beautiful bastards...I'm about to raise a glass to all the fine thing you did in your years as a hearty thanks for your hard-scrabble living and dying. Slainte.