The Baddest Poet In the World

Zombie Logic Press is located exactly in the geographical center of  Rockford, Illinois: America's 3rd Most Dangerous City. Furthermore, within that dystopian wasteland, Zombie Logic Press anchors the 5th most dangerous neighborhood in America, which I believe entitles me to make the claim that I am the most dangerous poet in America.

Every one of my grade school teachers seemed to agree. 

Each one of my grade school teachers in succession made very great efforts to convince me poetry was the type of thing that gets a small boy into trouble and leads to a life of depraved indifference to societal standards. They sure were right about that. I should have listened. But I had the poetry bug bad. To their credit, they warned me. 

I was a pretty shady character back in those days, and if they hadn't made such an effort to deter me from the path of goodness, truth, and creativity, there's no telling what type of destruction I might have unleashed on an unsuspecting world. Glad they stopped me. But if they hadn't I soon learned countless others were willing to take their place. Drill instructors, professors, bosses, editors, whoever felt they might have a penile insufficiency or a vaginal surplus. They wanted me to know poetry simply wasn't going to fly, not on their watch. 

My first book was published when I was still a teenager. Many people were furious, mostly because they hadn't published a book and they didn't think I should have, either. The only place you can buy this is at Google, because it sold out over twenty years ago. Every subsequent book I have published at Zombie Logic Press, until Iced Cream, was modeled after this one, largely because it's the only way I knew how to do it.

For some reason, I decided to come back from San Diego, one of the most beautiful cities in the world, to Rockford, one of the ugliest. I spent a few years letting other people pay for me to go to college, where I maintained a 4.0 and won a bunch of scholarships I didn't need because everything was already being paid for. Once again it was re-affirmed to me that being good, working harder, and outperforming other people was irrelevant on this planet. Then, mysteriously, at age 30, my life began. I remember the moment clearly. I had just re-read Richard III, and like a lazer beam boring into my amygdala it became clear to me being a good guy was for chumps. I published my second book that year.

Detached Retinas. Go ahead and be a dear and buy that here. This is a compilation of poems I wrote while in college. They tend towards the surreal and innocuous. Some are even slightly romantic and nice. Mostly people didn't like it. I can really relate to their feelings. It's the last gasp of any true romance or naivete that I might have had in this life, or ever will have again. In that sense it's the only book I have written I can pick up and enjoy reading. I wouldn't but if I did. Then I started my fifteen year career working in bars and restaurants. Which led to my third book.

Flesh Wounds. I'm making the picture bigger because I have a lot more to say about this. Be a voyeuristic lech and buy this here. These are the sordid tales of the time I spent working in dive bars, strip clubs, dance clubs, sports bars, fine dining, and the most scumbag ridden location of them all... the country club. Fast money, fast chicks, drugs, violence. I got paid to do the things most people dream about. And I was good at it. At first. Actually, I was still good at it later, too, especially when me and my brother owned our own bar, Castaways, but that long, drawn out perversion of the senses might open the doors to wisdom, but once wisdom is acquired it's time to move on.

I started writing Submerged Structure on the porch of my brother's house on a yellow legal pad one summer when I was between gigs. The one at the fireman bar and the dance club, if I remember correctly. I wanted to just strip down the whole writing experience and write for the same of the image. I've never been a big believer in adjectives or jamming a line full of figures of speech. It's a fun book with a lot of silliness to it. You can buy that here. The title refers to my lifelong battle with Schizoid Personality Disorder. How the hell do you bartend with a disorder like that, it has been asked. Drugs and booze were always my answer. 

That's how I ended up becoming the most dangerous poet in America. 

I have largely abandoned the poetry writing game now because I said pretty much everything I have to say, and now i have set my sites on publishing far better writers than myself. The first book I did was a real lolapalooza.

Iced Cream by Jesus Abraham Correa. Go ahead and buy it on the margin at the right.