I have a Ph. D. in Renaissance literature, and live alone and isolated in an old,
inherited, two-story, decaying house, in the sunny Tampa slums The egregious ugliness of
the neighborhood has recently been mitigated by the esthetic activities of the police
department. The police have pasted bright yellow and orange posters on each post. The
posters advertise that the location is a shopping mall for drugs and proclaim "no
loitering," Thus everybody in the neighborhood jogs while carrying cell phones. I live as a
stranger and alien, not comprehending the customs, the costumes, or the language,
some form of postmodern English. I have had over 2,000 poems published in over 500
print magazines such as APR, Nation, Literary Review, Black Moon, and
Bitter Oleander, but am not certain if I have any readers since people rarely read
poems in print magazines. My fourteenth and latest book of poems is Watching Wisteria.
Duane's honors include the Edna St. Vincent Millay, Charles Agnoff and Walt Whitman
awards.Watching Wisteria is available at www.vidapublishing.com.
Go to "Poetry From Duane Locke"
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