Check out my poem "Loosed" in Right Hand Pointing! It was made via a prompt that involved making a word bank out of a couple of Yeats poems and trying to construct a new poem that used only those words. 

• Need help writing your wedding vows? 
  
• Would you like to commission a poem for someone you love? Or maybe a poem for yourself? Or maybe one disparaging someone you can't stand?
  
• Do you have a poetry manuscript you want editorial feedback on?
  
• Do you want someone to ghost write your blog or autobiography?
  

I think it's fair to say that I'm a talented writer. I am also a broke writer. I will write or edit essentially anything (I will not write college papers -- as an educator that makes me feel icky. I am fine with editing them).

If interested, email me at stevie.lee.edwards@gmail.com

Rates will be reasonable and negotiable. 

Dear Earth,

Due to a number of unexpected financial blows this summer + my summer pay being about 2/3 what it is during the year, I'm kind of in a state of being scarily broke. The eating only beans and rice and willing to do any legal work available kind of broke. I can't afford coffee; I have been a heavy coffee drinker since about 13; this is awful. If anyone has any inclination to buy my chapbook (Pain Needs to Remember), I'd be incredibly appreciative. If you click here, an scroll down, you'll see a paypal button. I'd normally be too proud for such things, but I'm going of in the "nothing less to lose" point.

Also, if anyone can think of any temp work I could get in Ithaca or do remotely, I'd be incredibly appreciative. I'm trying to get a second job, but it's a little hard because I'm touring in August -- it's hard to convince someone to hire me when I'll be gone in a month. 

Also, here's a fitting song for the day:

This was the last poem written for my book. It was written for my uncle who died two days before my manuscript was due for the Write Bloody contest.His funeral was July 2, 2011. His memory is still very much with me each day, each time I sit down to write. 


APORIA

When the conservative lines
of a sleeveless funeral dress
shifted in the stick of July morning
to reveal a map needled
into my shoulders, a cartography
of home, my father asked why
I didn’t love the body gifted me
by God, and by God, I believe
he meant himself.

Because it was his brother
in the casket and I can recognize a man
whose mouth has been hijacked
by the image of the liver
death he’s campaigned against
with two decades of sobriety,
I said nothing.
I am tired of love that requires
beauty to come first.

There was nothing beautiful
to love about the embalmed
pudgy face of my uncle,
but his daughters still collapsed
into condolences. This is
how family is supposed to
break for each other. 

My uncle has been buried
three months, and I’ve been
binging toward him.
Stillness is a dead bird.
I am trying to keep moving.
Today I bleached the life
from my hair, dyed the straw
a disappointing fade of blue.

My father loved my auburn locks
enough to curse at barbers
for shearing any more
than the frayed ends.
I am constructing a mote
out of ugly. I crush midnight
into my skull. I am my own
gilded God of pain.     

Father, wasn’t it you
who caught my slimy body
as I exited the folds
of my first home? Wasn’t it
you who later said I should’ve
stayed there, too much
nastiness for any man to bear?