Jeffrey Spahr-Summers's Blog

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So I once sat on a hotel in Florida, not literally (of course), that was just the cutting edge lingo of the day. In 1986, I worked as a Travelling Controller for a hotel management company. I was filling in for a Controller who was on vacation. As far as I was concerned, I was also on vacation, there was after all, an ocean, and a beach, and I had been on the road for an eternity.
What could happen?
I was befriended by a woman who worked in the hotel. Although we worked during the day, my vacation, became a potent whirlwind of parties with my new friend around town, on the beach, playing bars like dominoes, and intimacy on her friend's private cabin cruiser, docked on a canal. It was beautiful!
As was customary, I spent the night before I left town alone. It was a gorgeous night. A full moon split the ocean like a beam from a lighthouse, and I walked the beach, breathing in the beauty, the waves, and the solitude. I could contain myself no more. I stripped down, and went swimming in the ocean. While swimming, I was flooded by memories of other adventures in oceans; Cape Town, Arniston, Durban, Mozambique, Hong Kong, Rio, Guam, Truk, Hilo, and Rehoboth Beach.
My reverie was suddenly interrupted by a very powerful flashlight shining out on me from the beach. Well, I wasn't about to swim ashore and get out of the water naked for just any flashlight. I floated for a moment and considered my options. I swam down the beach. The flashlight followed me. Then the flashlight began yelling as it bobbed along with me. I couldn't tell what the flashlight was saying, but it didn't matter, I got the point! It was pointless ... where could I possibly go?  So i finally swam ashore.
The flashlight promptly arrested, hand cuffed, and stuffed me in a police cruiser ... without allowing me to collect my clothing (which by this time, was hundreds of yards up the beach). On the way to the police station, I worried about the outcome of this particular misadventure. I had been arrested enough before, but never naked! The ramifications of this stark fact were not lost on me. I was on company assignment, in a strange city with limited funds, and no friends or family to bail me out. Frankly, I expected to be fired once word reached our corporate headquarters in Dallas.
To my chagrin, we pulled up in front of the police station in full view of other early morning revelers. I was made to get out, stand cuffed, and naked, next to the cruiser, while the flashlight dicked around with paperwork inside the car. I was thus, satisfactorily humiliated. Upon entering the station, however, I was immediately relieved by the look of horror on the Desk Sargent's face as he shook his head from side to side, and by his words... "God-damned rookie!"
My relief was complete, when the Desk Sargent dropped all charges, and berated the flashlight in front of me, "You find him some clothes to put on NOW, take him back to where you picked him up, help him find his clothes." "And (as if an after-thought)... if his clothes are NOT to be found, you WILL take him to buy replacement clothing. Is that understood?"
It was!

So while we finish our re-vamping (so to speak) of Poetry Victims, I thought it might be fun to browse our list of Previous Guests over the last almost 9 years!

Heather Lenz, Anthony Glumac, Cindy Stell, Sandhya Tiwari, Sarah Martin, Marcie Riel, Sarah Herrington, Lyn Lifshin, Nicole E. Turiano, Ian R. Daugherty, Elizabeth Ketrick, Amy Kohut, Christian Drake, Sheng Wen Lo, Edward Wells II, Linda Kent, Luis Cuauhtemoc Berriozabal, Dorien Grey, Michael A. Crowley, Cindy Stell, Ed Baker, Rob Geisen, Robert King, Pierre Francillon, Jan Oscar Hansen, Karen Douglass, Candice Byington, Michael Lira, Jared Smith, Junanne Peck, Buddy Wakefield, Janet Snell, Jonathan Penton, Debra Bretton Robinson, Donna Pecore, Melanie Simms, Dafne Ann Wills, Anna Maly, Michael Pacholski, Stephen Mead, Ramdas Pawar, Bob Craig, Peter Schwartz, Carol Radsprecher, Taylor Graham, Donna Kuhn, Megan Murphy, Christopher Barnes, Birgitta Jonsdottir, Chaim Rosenblum, Candy Tothill, Eila Mahima Jaipaul, Sonja Broderick, Michael Virga, Alan Lee Birkelbach, Elinor Melvin, Justin Spahr-Summers, Linda Benninghoff, Umesh Ghoshdastider, Daniel A. Olivas, Bridgit-Rose Lee, Ulrike Gerbig, Carolyn Mahdi, Michael Estebrook, Andrew Kirkwood Peterson, Ted Kooser, Patsy Anne Bickerstaff, Bonnie Florea, Gerald Stern, Samuel Hazo, Daniel Elijah, Pamela Lindley, Jake, Laura Stamps, Stephen Roxborough, James M. Brown, Roger Humes, T. Ashok Chadkravarthy, Maria C. James, Simon Perchik, Timothy Smith, Arif Khudairi, Bam Dev Sharma, Corey Habbas, Glenn Smith, Wes Ward, James Carraway, Kristi Swadley, John Simon, Maurice Taylor, Jackie Goldstein, Jim D. Babwe, Norm Wygant Jr., Patricia Gomes, Joseph Veronneau, Joel L. Young, Alex Stolis, Gerald Bosaker, Helen Bar-Lev, Anthony Liccoine, Josie Lawson, Andie King-Vaughn, John Browning, Kenny Klein, Merilene Murphy, T.L. Stokes, Michael Levy, David Fraser, Bert Glick, Tom Berman, Todd Heldt, Jim Bennett, Kristin Johnson, Ward Kelley, Ryfkah, Tony Bush, Jason Robert Hall, Tiffany Franzoni, Royce Franzoni Jr., Christopher Soden, Karen E. Harrison, Bobbi Jo Coffee.

Thank you for all your patience everyone, our new website is almost ready.

Blogger (the vehicle behind our current issues for many years now) has been 86'd for good, as far as, Poetry Victims is concerned.

Our domain transfer from the previous website host is currently in limbo practically speaking. But ownership of the domain is not in question, its just complicated, stemming back to the day my debit card was compromised by someone trying to buy tickets on Saudi Airlines ... as I tried to re-new the domain online.

Stick around, it only gets better!

And our new retro Poetry Victims design and pages are intact. The vision of the issue is complete, and as Nicole begins loading content on the website, I will continue experimenting, tinkering with structure, form, and design.

Rest assured, we are all over it!

Thank you.

Yours,
Nic and ZZ

So life is never only one battle waging war, it is a series of skirmishes, public and private, some known, some never fathomed, and victories and losses and mistakes and blood and sweat and guts and despair and fear and pain and healing and hope and love and joy and freedom. Sometimes it is ... all of them/all at once/all together/a grand fuck-all of karmic happenstance ... and you cant see anything until the dust clears.
This is when you rely on the love of good friends to speak to you of truth for the sake of truth itself, not mystery or riddle or lesson!

So the thing with Poetry Victims current issue release, is that we are having a formatting crisis with Blogger. It is a problem that I have dealt with for a few years, but it never mattered that much when I was only using 2 poems and 2 pieces of art. With our large issues as of late, it is a major problem. After weeks of re-loading work, and changing formatting, and doing it all over again, and again, and again, I am totally and completely discouraged with our lack of resolution to the problem!

We have exhausted every possible option that Nicole has so faithfully flushed out with which to experiment and consider. It is a shame really, as we have always been fond of our distinct differences in presentaion, compared to other online publications. But life is change, and change is what we will honor.

As I see it, the only solution left, is to dump Blogger right now (which we planned to do 'after' this issue anyway) and just finish the new Poetry Victims website that I am working on.

My apologies to all of the very patient writers and artists who submitted work to us, but I refuse to publish this issue until we are satisfied the work is presented in the best possible light.

Please bear with us.

Luv ya,
ZZ and Nic

So my colleague and friend Rafal asked me tonight, "Why aren't you writing a book of hotel stories?" "You've been talking about it for years."

At this time of the morning, particularly on weekends, we are mostly preoccupied with getting drunk people out of our hotel lobby, into taxis, and home. The average wait for a cab on a weekend after the bars close in Boulder is about an hour, sometimes more.

Tonight, a man gave me a $1 tip when his cab arrived. He said to me, "This is a fuckin' hundred dollar bill right there."

"Goodnight!"

So sometimes we rely on friends to remind us of what is really important in life.

As for me, my blessings go far and wide. But for the moment, I speak only of these blessings that I hold dear inside me.

I am blessed with a son who is thriving and brilliant and wise.

I am blessed with ex-step-children who want to stay relevant in my heart and my life.

I am blessed with a family and troop of sisters and tributaries who love me.

I am blessed with the attention and friendship of beautiful and interesting and talented people everywhere I go, and the world over.

I am blessed with good health and this demanding talent and imagination and fire all my own.

And I am blessed with you.

And if you (whoever you are reading this...) think I mean you, I do!

I love you.

So I have this nice, solid cardboard box where I store copies of almost everything I've ever published in print. Of all these things, I am only missing a couple of Hammers Magazines and a very important Chicago anthology that I have been missing for many years (thinking perhaps that I gave them to an old friend).

While looking for a specific book in a panic the other day, I resorted to my sister's book shelves, and to my unbridled delight I happened upon one of the above said Hammers Magazines and this...


Copyright 1991 by Tia Chucha Press


The value of this anthology to me is simple. It is an important part of my life, one of those charmed moments where old friends and acquaintances recognized the incredible energy that enveloped us all, and so the moment was preserved.

The poems in this anthology are for the most part the signature poems of the contributors in that moment (many of which were my personal favorites ... that I have been missing for so long).

What a moment indeed, it rocks my life still!

So today is a glorious Colorado Winter day of striking magnificence. We all know this happens here. Feel free to admit it.

And I am grateful for an odd acquaintance of things that I won't bore you to shreds with over details, not the least the weather.

But today, I am taking time to fly.

And I have been cooped up for way too long.

And a bird with clipped wings is no bird at all ... so I fly!

And while driving home from Boulder (with all the windows down for the first time in forever), I couldn't resist sliding into that Mick Jagger attitude to the music. You know, the lips and head bobbing thing.

And I like it when my hair stings my face and lashes out chaotically to the wind. When my hair is alive, I feel powerful.

And I find it strangely interesting what upsets people when they are driving.