My books

Splinter Factories

November 18, 2016 by rurugby Leave a Comment

Books finished:

Splinter Factory by Jeffrey McDaniel — Great book of poetry. It’s always wonderful to discover another poet you like. I miss the features at Port Veritas in Portland, Maine and discovering great poets all the time. ***1/2

Voices of Bipolar Disorder — A lot of good pieces in here. The opening piece about the play was unnecessary. There is no question to me Bipolar is a spectrum disorder. ***

You Don’t Miss Your Water by Cornelius Eady — Short book of narrative poetry about Mr. Eady losing his father. Good stuff. ***

Books checked out:

“The Year of Voting Dangerously: The Derangement of American Politics” by Maureen Dowd — Probably too soon, but decided to grab it at the library. When you have a 30 page introduction I feel like it should be part of the book not in small capped roman numerals. Finished the introduction and a couple pieces so far. Read about 60 pages so far.

“A Poetry Handbook: A Prose Guide to Understanding and Writing Poetry” by Mary Oliver — I love her poems especially “Dog Songs” and “…” curious if I will want to buy this. If I like it, it’s something I will need to own.

“From Bauhaus to Our House” by Tom Wolfe — A criticism of contemporary architecture and the Bauhaus movement. A book I already love and I think own, I have no idea where it is, probably a box in our storage space. Up to page 12 this time. ****

“The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World” by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu — Two figures I would like to know more about.

“The Making of a Poem : a Norton Anthology of Poetic Forms” / edited by Mark Strand and Eavan Boland — I will be curious how much of this I read or if it’s something I want to keep.

I actually have 15 books out of the library right now which is an awful lot.

Books read:

“Pleasing the Ghost” by Sharon Creech — Nice fun little kids story about his uncle visiting him beyond the grave. Dopey in a lovely way. On page 40 of 89

“This Girl” by Colleen Hoover — Getting better, still an odd book. Helps that it’s been a few weeks since I finished the book this tells from the man’s perspective “Slammed”. This feels mostly unnecessary though. pg. 106 of 285

“Unfathomable City: A New Orleans Atlas” edited by Rebecca Solnit and Rebecca Snedeker, I really want to finish this one, trying to push ahead pg 66 of 158. I honestly wish this was a longer book, the text size is way too small. I definitely need my reading glasses.

“The Kingdom of Speech” by Tom Wolfe — odd book on how speech isn’t explained by Darwin’s “Origin of Species” in Tom Wolfe’s opinion. Not his strongest non-fiction work so far pg. 90 of 169 ***

On Kindle:

Sample of “This is Not My Beautiful Life: A Memoir” by Victoria Fedden, good fun but too expensive at I think $10 on Kindle. Going to see if the CT library has it. Yep.

Sample of “Bukowski in a Sundress: Confessions from a Writing Life” by Kim Addonizio, very good and fun, not in the CT library system but did reserve a fiction book and book of poetry

“Shelter” by Robin Merrill — 17% of the way in. I’m enjoying the Christian romance so far. She said there are 3 churches that operate as shelters within 30 miles of her house in central Maine. Not my genre but I expect to read this one and the sequel Daniel. ***

Nice that my Kindle is working right again, my wife Lanna figured out something to get it updated. Woo!

How the Doing the Arts Makes Us Better

January 26, 2016 by rurugby Leave a Comment

I am currently re-reading Mark Vonnegut’s “Just Like Life Without Mental Illness Only More So.”

In chapter 17 “There’s Nothing Quite as Final as a Dead Father”, in his case the legendary Kurt Vonnegut, he talks about one of Kurt Vonnegut’s more famous quotes, the one that actually starts my chapbook, how about how art makes us better and creates something.

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

Here are some of Mark Vonnegut’s thinking about making art. He was a writer and also liked to paint watercolors.

My father gave me the gifts of being able to pay attention to my inner narration no matter how tedious the damn thing could be at times and the knowledge that creating something, be it music or a painting or a poem or a short story, was a way out of wherever you were and a way to find out what the hell happens next and not have it just be the same old thing. It’s better to live in a world where you can write and paint and tell a few jokes than one where you can’t.

All the arts are ways to start a dialogue with yourself about what you’ve done, what you could have done differently, and whether or not you might try again. Whether or not you want to make a living or can make a living at it, people who consistently bother to try almost always get good or at least a little better.

Kurt was always trying to reach a little beyond what he was sure of. His refusal to find a groove and stay there when he was famous and successful was admirable, but it was also because he dreaded what life would be if he stopped being creative, honest and willing to be awkward.

Right now I am trying to learn Spanish, I should probably do some Babbeling today on babbel.com. I am trying to learn guitar playing with the guitar for a while most days, and trying to write everyday with the blog and Three Good Things on Facebook. I guess one disadvantage of doing Three Good Things on Facebook only is that it is effemeral to me until I see the anniversary of the thoughts. But, I think that is okay, I guess I could make a Three Good Things Blog. So many of them are similar each day. I love my wife, I love the kitties, nature is beautiful, the little things matter.

I have been also quoting other Mark Vonnegut after Googling “Mark Vonnegut Quotes” on going on Goodreads, there are 3 pages of them.

“Beyond a certain point, gathering further evidence of the hurtfulness and shortcomings of one’s family, employer, et cetera is like eating the same poisonous mushroom over and over and expecting that sooner or later it will be nutritious.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

“I understand perfectly why some of my autistic patients scream and flap their arms–it’s to frighten off extroverts”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

“Writing is very hard mostly because until you try to write something down, it’s easy to fool yourself into believing you understand things. Writing is terrible for vanity and self-delusion.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

This one is very sad.
“I don’t think the people today who start hearing voices, stop eating and sleeping, and run amuck are likely to get good treatment. Having more knowledge, better diagnostic capabilities, better medications with fewer side effects, can’t make up for the fact that most patients are being treated by doctors, therapists, and hospitals, who are operating under constraints and incentives that reward non-treatment, non-hospitalization, non-therapy, non-follow-up, non-care. Lost to follow-up is the best outcome a health insurer can hope for.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“If you believe that the dollars made by the pharmaceutical industry are plowed back into research that leads to better and better medications, you probably believe in the tooth fairy as well.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So: A Memoir

“We’re here to get each other through this thing, whatever it is.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“What occurs to people when they read Kurt [Vonnegut] is that things are much more up for grabs than they thought they were. The world is a slightly different place just because they read a damn book. Imagine that.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“Introverts almost never cause me trouble and are usually much better at what they do than extroverts. Extroverts are too busy slapping one another on the back, team building, and making fun of introverts to get much done. Extroverts are amazed and baffled by how much some introverts get done and assume that they, the extroverts, are somehow responsible.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“Who but a brazen crazy person would go one-on-one with blank paper or canvas armed with nothing but ideas?”
― Mark Vonnegut

“None of us are entirely well, and none of us are irrecoverably sick.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“I often took him as one of God’s little jokes on me. When I was in desperate trouble, what saved me from a fate worse than death? To what do I owe my life? Was it love, affection, understanding, friends, wisdom? No no no. It was a man who looks like a poor copy of Walt Disney, drives pink Cadillacs, wears baby-blue alligator shoes, and appears to have the emotional depth of a slightly retarded potato.”
― Mark Vonnegut, The Eden Express: A Memoir of Insanity (I think this was Kurt Vonnegut he is speaking of)

“The biggest gift of being unambiguously mentally ill is the time I’ve saved myself trying to be normal.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So

“He couldn’t help thinking that all that money we were spending blowing up things and killing people so far away, making people the world over hate and fear us, would have been better spent on public education and libraries. It’s hard to imagine that history won’t prove him right, if it hasn’t already.”
― Mark Vonnegut (on Kurt Vonnegut)

“Today it’s nice to be able to entertain odd thoughts without having to marry them all. Thank God. I can think whatever the hell I want. Entertaining odd thoughts won’t make you crazy. Refusing to entertain odd thoughts won’t make you well.”
― Mark Vonnegut

“At the end of his life, which had included financial ruin in the Great Depression, his wife’s barbiturate addiction and death by overdose, and then his own lung cancer, Doc said, “It was enough to have been a unicorn.” What he meant was that he got to do art. It was magic to him that his hands and mind got to make wonderful things, that he didn’t have to be just another goat or horse.”
― Mark Vonnegut, Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So (on Kurt Vonnegut)

Another thing that I like in Mark Vonnegut’s book is that he has terrible handwriting too. Although unlike Mark Vonnegut my handwriting is okay.

Here is an excellent NPR story about “Just Like Someone Without Mental Illness Only More So” by Mark Vonnegut, that includes the first few pages of the book.

It’s an excellent book, that I still need to finish today.
***1/2

2014: A Year of Grounding – Deep and Simple

January 6, 2014 by rurugby 3 Comments

We live in shallow and complex times.

Worried about e-mails, about texts, Twitter, Facebook.

Often interacting more with people even that we know in shallow ways. Always feeling like we need to check into our media and devices. A society full of advertising of buy, buy, buy of you need this, you need that.

You don’t. No really, you don’t.

You really don’t need a smartphone although it is very shiny. You don’t need an iPad, again very shiny. You don’t need those new clothes, you don’t need to see every movie, you probably don’t need more stuff.

You need to connect. To people, to the earth, to yourself.

I am dedicating 2014 to be the Year of Grounding for me. I need it.

The last two years have been very ungrounding. Losing my father in law Walter Maheux in March 2012, losing my beloved father Henry Edmunds Davis on April 1, 2013. I am still grieving. I still do not have all of my psychic and spiritual energy and might not for some time. I am trying to ground again and get back into myself. I need it.

I find writing helpful. I love conversations especially one on one although they can be hard to do. Why did it become weird to call someone? Seriously. I love to connect with people. In 2012 I started having lunches with one person and just talking. It was cool. It’s good to spend an hour with just one person and not be in the cacophony of noise and information of the internet and smartphones. I want to get back to it again and having lunch with someone tomorrow.

I am really happy to be in therapy. I had an unbelivably tough year that included a major manic episode in April, 2013. It was one heck of a month. Although I did write some good poems and posts including a memorial for my dad. I also ended up in jail for 36-48 hours of Patriot’s Day last year while fully manic and became extraordinarily manic. Basically doing a 24 hour performance in a cell to the NSA who I was sure was watching. Then was held down and drugged after getting loud at the Maine Medical Center ER and forgot 24 hours completely. April was unbelievably ungrounding. Losing the rock of my life, as I said in a poem at my dad’s memorial service. Losing my sanity.

Recovering slowly. Spring Harbor helped. Lithium helped a lot, dulling my mind when I needed it, found it dulling after my crisis as well and slowly going off of it. My wife helped, my mom helped, my therapist really helped. I am very thankful for therapy. More of us need to be in it. Seeing her tomorrow and happy to go over goals and talk about the last 3 weeks that includes that big holiday of Christmas and all the energy you put in an use for it.

————————-

I feel the need to ground. To slow myself down. In the words that Fred Rogers used from the documentary “Mister Rogers and Me ***” Make your life deep and simple not shallow and complex.

Take a walk. Look up. See the stars. See the clouds. Feel the wind. Hear the water. Rest your mind. Listen. Breathe. Breathe. Slow down. Touch the Earth if you need do, do some Earthing. Literally ground yourself.

Make it a practice. Meditate. Prayer with your heart. Bring the worries of the brain down to the heart. Practice the mediations I learn from Whispering Deer. Your heart can take a lot in, the brain wants to analyze everything. Breathe. Breathe.

One thing I do to ground that make me feel joy is walking with my headphones at work. There is great landscaping there. Statues, trees, birds, a creek, a marsh. Listening to something like Bob Dylan’s “Blowin in the Wind” yesterday, watching the trees in the twilight in a sea of clouds. Transported. Just looking. Appreciating.

Your technology can wait. Texts can wait. You can turn your cellphone off. Sometimes it’s good to not be available. People do not need you all the time. You can not answer a text. You can leave your phone in your pocket while driving. Pay attention.

Right now, I am looking out my window. Seeing rain on the panes. Seeing a gray sky with some blue just after sunset with plenty of dark gray clouds after a rainy, and warm day that reached the upper 40s and had plenty of snowmelt. Can see some red of the sunset in the distance. Lights over the parking lot for the Dancing Elephant and the Frog and Turtle. Light in the parking lot by me. A wet American flag. Trees in fornt of the sunset. A wide Presumpsoct River that is harder to notice through the raindrops. The Disability RMS sign hiding through the trees. A car driving through. Listening, looking.

Billy Collins said all a poet needs is a window, paper and a pencil. Simple. Beautiful. Calming. Noticing. Not overthinking. Which we all do too mcuh. Looking up seeing the day change, watching the birds. Seeing the scampering of creatures. Hoping the insects don’t bite.

Think when you were happiest. Was it a tweet? A Facebook message?

Was it time with a friend, with a loved one, a lover and partner? With family? Eating, drinking. Maybe on vacation in the woods, in the desert? Listening, content at peace. Breathe.

We all need more peace. Less worry.

A life deep and simple where you appreciate things. My cats Lenny and Squiggy. My wife Lanna. The simple sound of the cat fountain. The silence. Sleep, dreams. My family. My sister Mindy, brother in law, Robert. Brother in law Bill, mother in law Dottie. And the ones who have passed, my dad Henry, father in law Walter. Grandparents Avis Neal, Charles Neal, Mary Davis and Donald Davis. My Aunt Louise. My mother’s best friend Dottie Mithee, Cousin Benny.

And heroes who have passed and enriched my life like Kurt Vonnegut, Mark Twain, Carl Sandburg, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Miles Davis. And of course teachers past, present and futures. Those who listen. Those who let us listen.

The water. The sky. The birds. The animals. Our pets. Cats, dogs. The mice we can’t see. The bees who pollenate. The pollen that makes us sneeze.

Breathe. Ground. Let life be easy. Let life be quiet. Read. Turn the screen off. Just listen to music. Drift. Dream.

Work to live a deep and simple life in complex and shallow times. Love one another. Hug. Kiss. Be thankful. Breathe. Mediate. Be Present. Appreciate the silence. Learn to love the noise and watch. See the sky change and darken, as the blue almost disappears and the red of sunset is almost gone.

Rest. Breathe. Ground and be Peaceful.

Blessed be.

A Cold Week in May

May 27, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

Just got back from a festival in the woods.

First 2 days were warm, then came a ton of hail and a tornado warning. The weather from Tuesday evening until Sunday afternoon was cold and miserable. It only really got nice on Monday as I was leaving. Hearing the music from harps on a beautiful mountain in the Berkshires.

This was an internal Rites of Spring for me. One where I napped a lot, went to bed early and did some deep meditation. I came out of my week in the woods softer. Appreciating that both me and Lanna are still in mourning. That losing a parent takes a lot out of you. That you can be part of a festival even if you lay down during the rites and just listen.

I feel my softer self coming back. But, realize my patience can still be easily tested. And that McDonald’s is not the right lunch coming out of the woods, you need more time and space.

I also realized today and this week how much poetry can be appreciated. I sold some books, but much more heard how much people enjoy my work. It means a lot.

I plan to blog more again now that I’m off the mountain. I am feeling my balance returning. I know though that it’s not going to be fast, and that’s okay. I think I will still need more rest. I will still need to be internal. Sadness and mourning comes in waves. I had a huge wave crest in mid-April that is still settling now.

We are all a little mad. Especially those of us that are interesting. Embrace your journey, love yourself and become who you were meant to be. Sometimes life disappoints us. From the small journeys of a week in the cold woods down to the 30s overnight, to the massive journey of mourning. Life is never what we expect.

But, we need to be open to the joys. Little things like hearing and sensing a cat entering the room like my beloved Squigman/Squiggy. A sunset cresting in the horizon. The green of Spring. Seeing a dear friend. A hug. A ear that listens. Hearing someone else’s story. A child’s laughter. Even a child’s tears can be beautiful. Learn to be present. Learn to be aware, there is so much beauty in this world.

Sometimes though we need to rest.

Blessed be.

Embracing the Geek: A Writers Journey Selected Poems 2010-2013. My first book.

April 10, 2013 by rurugby Leave a Comment

My first book called “Embracing the Geek: A Writers Journey Selected Poems 2010-2013” is almost ready to be available in PDF tonight.

I need to type in one poem that is still in journal, and then do formatting with my wife tonight.

The goal of the book is in the wonderful quote by Kurt Vonnegut in my 2nd favorite book of his (to Slaughterhouse-Five) “A Man Without a Country”:

“If you want to really hurt you parents, and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possible can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

So make something, anything. A pot at a pottery store, it may not be symettrical, it may crack, it may not hold water and need to be used for pens, but it will be your cup, that you made, with your hands. And it will be art.

Or like me and Lanna Lee you could blog every day. If you average 100 words a day it’s a novella, 250 words a day a full modern novel (365 pages). And the post can simply be “today f**king sucks. Ow!” That’s a blogpost you kept up your writing journey. And you will keep improving and if you use a blogging program like WordPress easily archive your work.

It’s also about gratitude to my writer’s journey. From 2nd to 4th grade I wanted to be a writer. I learned to create my work on a computer and let it flow. Then in 5th grade, I had a terrible, horrendous, not very good English teacher that thought me being on a computer was an abomination of his narrow worldview. These terrible teachers have tenure, and continue to infect students for decades. Meanwhile the amazing, creative teachers who inspire art, creativity and writing are on 1 year contracts and not hired on. There is both my amazing 4th grade Language Arts/English teacher and some of my friends I am thinking of here.

The book starts with the Vonnegut quote and then has a very long acknowledgment. If you are listed on it, congratulations! You have earned a free PDF copy of the book. I only have 100 copies of the book, signed and numbered so if you want one assigned (there are about 35/100 books unclaimed before even PDF release) please let me know on the blog, or my e-mail address edquinn at gmail dot com (to avoid spam), my Twitter feed at @rurugby or my Facebook at Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn.

Here is the acknowledgment:

This limited edition chapbook is designed for all the people who have helped me in my writing and poetry journey. So if you have made this list of people who are awesome, you have earned a free chapbook. I would love to do trade for the poets in the room, and to pass the gratitude forward for those who are not. And maybe even inspire you to write.
I first want to dedicate this chapbook to the love of my life, the wonderful, fabulous and amazing Lanna Lee Maheux. She is my rock, my partner, and makes me life immensely richer. I love you.
Next I want to dedicate this book to the radically inclusive and safe space, Rhythmic Cypher. The 2nd poetry slam from the amazing small city of Portland, Maine. This was a dream and vision of my good friend Tina “T Love” Smith, and had a difficult birth in an imperfect space. Now that it has found its true home at the amazing Dobra Teahouse in Portland, Maine at 7pm on Sundays, it’s one of the best poetry slams in America. A place where genderqueers, gays, lesbians, freaks of all size, shapes and colors, and those afflicted with madness can feel safe. Where a 16 year old with panic disorder can read a beautiful and amazing poem about her condition and feel safe. Where Toben Tilgenman can make an amazing poem about what it means to be a man who was born in a woman’s body. Where music backs the poets, and the poets back each other. It is a spectacular success and I am so happy it is part of my community.
Next I want to thank New York Times bestselling author Colleen Hoover for first creating her wonderful young adult romance “Slammed” that used the power of the poetry slam to make the beautiful story of woman loses dad, woman loves boy across the street, boy across the street has no parents so transcendant, thank you. My friend Gennyfer Hanley sent me a link with the free eBook of slammed, and I loved it wrote a positive review on Amazon saying I was a slam poet and how much I love the book. She followed my blog at ed2dq.com and we became friends.
While Colleen was writing the follow-up to Slammed this time ahead in the story and from Wil (the boy’s perspective) called “Point of Retreat” she happened to see my blogpost/poem “Write Poorly” about simply writing and turning off the editor. She printed it off, put it up by her computer and looked at it whenever she felt discouraged or needed to remember to just write. I plan to make my second chapbook called “Write Poorly” with 500 copies. It is amazing to me that my little poem on my often not that read blogpost that often gets less than 10 pageviews a day inspired an author so much. So much that she put it in her book “Point of Retreat” that is a bestseller that has been read and loved by hundreds of thousands of people. Her 3rd book “Hopeless” is the number two eBook on Amazon so far in 2013, behind only behind Nicholas Sparks’ “Safe House”. Bemazing. That fact is surreal and amazing, that I may have more page reads in 2013 than the absolutely incredible and amazing Andrea Gibson who was the number one seller of the best slam poetry publishing house in America, Write Bloody Publications in 2012. Just ridiculous, if you haven’t read Andrea Gibson’s work yet and live in Portland, Maine go to Longfellow books and get a copy of her work, it’s outstanding.
Next I want to thank the Port Veritas writing, slam and poetry community for showing me love, giving me a place to read, and encouragement. Wil Gibson is a force of nature, and him saying “Write Poorly” is the best thing I ever read meant a lot. I have seen Port Veritas go from Acoustic Coffee, to the much beloved North Star Café, to Wil’s House, to the Mayo Street Arts Center, to Blue, to the wonderful restaurant Local Sprouts, and to it’s current location at Bull Feeney’s upstairs every Tuesday at 7:30pm.
I would be incomplete without talking about the amazing contributions of Tricia Hanley to Portland’s poetry scene and craft beer community. Her little bar, Mama’s Crowbar in Munjoy Hill, has some of the best craft beer you will ever drink in a wonderful small place. It would be my regular if I lived on the hill, but alas I live in Westbrook. They also host a reading hosted by Ryan McLellan that is unmiked, and at 9pm on Mondays. I do wish the reading is earlier so I can attend more. Unfortunately, I wake up at 4am most Mondays. It’s a great place to read.
Next I want to thank the heroes, friends, and compatriots of my journey towards embracing my inner geek. My recently departed father, Henry Edmunds Davis who passed away very recently on April 1, 2013 at 66 years old to brain cancer. You are one of the nicest men and fathers any son could wish for. I expected you to live so much longer, as did my wonderful mom Christine Davis. Their marriage is the great love I have seen through my life and it’s so sad it’s over after 42 years. Mom, I love you.
I also want to thank my wonderful and insanely intelligent sister, Melinda Davis Layten, who is ABD (all but dissertation) in computational biology and SUNY – Stony Brook. Dad’s illness I think took a lot out of my sister and brother-in-law Robert Layten, and I hope my dad’s journey away from pain, suffering and cancer allows her to become the brilliant scientist she is meant to be.
Next I want to thank the people who I have known the longest growing up in Montgomery Township, New Jersey north of Princeton. This chapbook may have the longest acknowledgements ever and I will just name some of my good friends that made feeling like an outcast in school easier: Greg Seidel, Bill Dyer, Conrad Saam, Anthony Schubert, Ben Dalbey, Eva Hanna, Kayt Sukel (who has an amazing book called “Dirty Minds” about the neuroscience of sex and love), Beth Cooper, Laura Hahn, Susan Flora …
Teachers including: Cheryl Watson, Jay Prag, Mr. Juliano, Mr. Harry Brobst, Ms. Williams and so many others.
And of course fellow poets including, who are mostly performance poets. I am about 20% a performance poet, and 80% a writer. Many of these excel at both and include: Heidi Therrien, Greg McKillop, Beau Williams, Jen Jacques, Toben, Emma Bovril, Paulie Lipman, Rachel McKibbens, Andrea Gibson, Billy Tuggle, Ryk McIntyre, Tony Brown, Melissa May, Sam Sax, Denise Jolly, Zanne Langlois, Robin Merrill and the fabulous Nancy Henry.
There are so many others I can mention but this is already an over 1,000 word acknowledgement to a chapbook. To all the friends I have made in the amazing city of Portland, Maine. Twitter has been an amazing way for this geek to meet people so I must thank Chyrstie Corns, and .. for creating them.
Also want to thank my Twitter heroes and friends like Alex Steed, Alexis Lyon, Keith Luke and so many others who make Portland a jewel of American cities.
I can’t name all the people who are part of my journey towards acceptance, but thank you all so much.

The last line of the book is “Make art, it’s good for the soul.” And it is so true.

Thank you and with much love,
Edmund Charles Davis-Quinn

Blessed be.
Make art! Suck!