The end of June must mean: My new poetry book's out! Not that it's anything as simple as a collection of poems. I mean, what'd be the fun in that? Instead, it's a 6,700 word story told from beginning to middle to end over the course of 63 poems written in a variety of forms and meters. Because that's what we do for fun 'round these parts! I never intended for it to be a story, actually. In fact, I wrote the "two strikes" separately as part of Zoetic Press's Write Like You're Alive program, a challenge to do something creative every day for a month. So in July of 2018, I wrote 31 poems under the title "Abecedarian," and four years later during August of 2022, I did 31 more poems called "The Lure of the Mechanical." A little thought, though, showed me that the first person narrator in both groups was the same guy, haplessly flailing after similar things in di...