Song of a Reformed Headhunter

THL and JEHL: If the city could answer your questions, what would you ask it? Why are these important issues to you? JLK: Will you ever change your survival and authoritarian mentality, which prioritizes economic development and political control above all else? How can you be changed? Will you remember me? And how will you remember me? THL and JEHL: Also let’s consider the reverse. What would your city ask you? Why? JLK: Who are you? Thanks, Tammy Lai-Ming Ho and Jason Eng Hun Lee, for the interview .

My sequence of poems "Reproductive Rites" is featured in the June issue of Short, Fast and Deadly . The sequence was written by incorporating four consecutive words from each poem of Julia Alvarez's sonnet sequence "33." I am grateful to editor Joseph A. W. Quintela for featuring my work in his innovative magazine for short verse. Matt Shoard wrote a highly imaginative analysis of the vowel-sound "o" in my poem "Razminovenie, or Nonmeeting" over at the blog of Cha. The Hong Kong-based journal, edited by Tammy Ho, first published the poem, which then appeared in my second book Equal to the Earth .

So nice when someone writes you out of blue, asking for permission to reprint a poem of yours, first published in an e-zine and forever archived in dusty electrons, because someone else has turned him onto you and he read your poem and admires it. Thanks, Tammy Ho of Cha for suggesting my name, and thanks, Reprint Journa l, staffed by editors who refuse to divulge their names, for reprinting "If the Fire Is In Your Apartment."  Republished today, Feb 14, the poem reads more than ever like a health warning about love. Thanks too, Shit Creek Review , for liking the poem first. Another reprint appears in the anthology Divining Divas , edited by Michael Montlack. I am one of 100 gay men who contributed poems on their muses, according to the collection's subtitle. I love the velvety feel of the cover, with its Klimt look-alike. My poem "Study #5: After Frida Kahlo" is a part of the title sequence of my latest book Seven Studies for a Self Portrait . Thank you, Mic...