DG: Besides your recent publication of Beg No Pardon, have you other books available or do you have a new book in the works?  

LT: Conflux Press published my chapbook Through A Window in a limited edition a few years ago, and, due to the artistry of Jim Natal and Tania Baban, it was a visual gem.  Almost all of the edition has been sold, so consideration is being given for another print run. I have new work forthcoming in Runes, the Southeast Review and PMS (Poem, Memoir, Story) and the journal Rattle, which is originates here in California, has come out recently with an e-issue which features several poems from BNP. Also, I've got a review of three fabulous books of poetry published within the last year – Blue Front, Wind in a Box and The Imaginary Poets—coming out in Poetry Internationallater this year.  I'd love to have another manuscript ready for publication in the next year or so but that remains to be seen!

 

DG: Last question: Where do you expect to be featuring this year? Where can people come out to see you? 

 

LT: I have an interview upcoming (don't know the date yet) on KPFK's Poets' Café and a list of readings that I'll be giving through early next year is posted on the Perugia Press website at www.perugiapress.com/news. I believe the site is updated pretty regularly. 

Half Brother Holler

 

I hear you been looking for my daddy –

I hear you telling everyone who’ll listen he fouled

   your mother and she got you –

I hear you say you don’t want no trouble

   but you troubling the water, I say –

I say why and what you want and I ain’t heard

    no good reason – no good reason after all

    these years – no – you just wanna kill my momma,

   my boy and girl and for no good reason ‘cepting

   I just wanna know –

and that ain’t no good reason to trouble the dead –

‘cause dead is what is and where he be now

so – you just go and tell his dust ‘cause dust

is where you-mean-nothin’-to-me can be found.

Imperfect Ghazal for an Unkown Mother

 

Because memory lives beyond death,

you’re still weeping for me.

 

Because guilt’s the eternal hammer,

you’re still bruising banjos for me.

 

Because my bones were carved from yours,

you’re a rug of broken mussels for me.

 

My songs are flat and coarse

because you’re walking south from me.

 

Because my name was never my own,

your choice has been a prison for me.

 

Though I weep having seen my death,

you are still living for me.