The River of Light

 

Empyrean has published a poem of mine in their latest issue. It is called "Working Around the Policy." You can read it here. Or here. Or here.

Five Poems in Twenty Two Twenty Eight

Come one, come all, this time I've got a link stuffed with poems. Not twenty-eight poems in Five and Twenty-Two. Not twenty-five in in Twenty-Eight and Two. And certainly not twenty-two poems in Eighty-Five and Twenty. I have five (you can count them) in Twenty-Two Twenty-Eight, a DC and NYC based journal. 

Come Get into the Tub

With the Hot Tub Astronaut. Two poems of mine are in it.

To Lisbon via Adelaide

Adelaide, a publication based out of New York and Lisbon, Portugal, has published five of my poems. Read them here, perhaps while listening to the song "Adelaide" by John Cale.

Apologies to Crown Heights

Just thinking about waiting for the train there makes my toes stick together

Two poems up in 352 Degrees, which is not the temperature of the 34th Street Herald Square station in August, but instead a small literary concern which is willing to take a risk on a young upstart like me!

More Libraries Should Have Literary Magazines

I have two poems up at Fourth and Sycamore, the literary journal of the Greenville Public Library. That's Greenville, Ohio. Read them here.

I'm currently in New York City, adjusting to life in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn.

I'm somewhere near that red star. It's a somewhat little known piece of the borough, not the hippest place but that's fine with me. We have a couple of interesting bars and that's enough. I'm a mile away from Prospect Park, the nearest landmark. Unlike my time in Manhattan, I'll probably get to see the passing of the seasons because the streets here are lined with trees. Although I live in a squat apartment building, not one of the old mansions the area is known for, I still get to enjoy the same sights and sounds of manicured nature.

I'm also still looking for work if anybody's got a lead. My areas of interest are legal, publishing, clerical, research, and administrative work.

Live from New York, It's Ben Nardolilli (Reprise)

Yes, the rumors are true, if you've heard them. Maybe they haven't come to you in the form of words my fellow New Yorkers. Maybe they've come in the form of slight atmospheric disturbances given off by my mustache. But I'm living in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn and I intend to make the most of it. I'm looking to hang out with you all, get involved in the local lit scene, and find gainful employment. Anybody want my resume? It's hot and ready to go out. Let's make this my perestroika summer friends.

Is It Nothing to You, All Who Click Through?

The lovely, understanding, endlessly creative and sympathetic Quail Bell magazine has published a piece I wrote. Finally, some more prose credits to my name. Even better, it's not fiction! So if you can't stand poetry and want writing to be about "reality," here's something for you, you Bourgeois Philistine (Philatelists are cool though).

First Poem of 2014 Published

2014 is here and hopefully it will bring the change I need after nearly a decade of socioeconomic blue balls. I need a new everything. Sometimes I think about just burning my earthly possessions and walking off into the woods. Honey and locusts and sackcloth oh my! But then I look outside and see there's snow everywhere and the nearest woods are next to a school. They probably wouldn't like me staying overnight there. I've been slacking on the publishing front, so I've put out poems, seeing if anything sticks. Already there's one acceptance to report and link to, a poem of mine is up at Luciferous, a blog maintained by Craig Scott. No, it doesn't have anything to do with the Prince of Darkness. It's just a word which means "illuminating" both figuratively and literally.  

Terry Gilliam Needs Money

Specifically, MY money. I guess he still hasn't recouped his losses from the Adventures of Baron Munchausen.

Louis H. Berman of Annapolis, Maryland Is an Idiot

Sometimes I read a letter to the editor at the Washington Post and suffer a minor attack of apoplexy. Unfortunately since I cannot go to a doctor for a cure and the apothecaries are all closed, I must turn to the next best substitute for leeches: a blog post. Louis H. Berman's letter here, buried away in the paper like a hateful jewel, is today's culprit. In a few spare paragraphs, Mr. Berman asserts the following about what's wrong with the Millennial Generation and while he spouts nonsense, in the process he reveals what is most wrong with the United States: namely that we have become a country willing to believe the most absurd and malicious lies about our fellow Americans. In sum, this is Mr. Berman's "argument:" 

1) Millennials are spoiled and lazy 
2) This is the fault of the Baby Boomers 
3) However, the reason for high unemployment is still not their fault.  Even though they were not in charge of Wall Street when it wrecked the economy, blame falls on the Millennials instead.
4) There are plenty of jobs for Millennials but they are too spoiled to find one. 
5) Millennials are supposed to "learn something" from their parents (who spoiled them in the first place) about what being in a real workplace means. 

I think Mr. Berman needs to go back and actually read the classifieds and want-ads some time. Sure there are plenty of jobs, but many require several years of experience and a decent portion of what do not are unpaid. Try looking for entry-level work Mr. Berman as I have, for multiple companies, in several fields, in different cities. It might be better than just talking out of your ass to tell the damn kids to get off your lawn. Now, you may claim that the Millennials are just too spoiled to take minimum wage, which was supposedly good enough for the folks of your generation. Remember that minimum wage was good enough for all of you because it was higher. A minimum wage job today pays less now when adjusted for inflation. Also, you may not know this because higher education used to cost a lot less, but many Millennials have college debts and need to earn money so that they can pay them off, debts they incurred in the first place so that they might not have to work for minimum wage all their lives.

I'm going to be generous Mr. Berman and assume you are not being motivated by spite, but rather an adherence to the just-world fallacy. In your view, unemployment is high because people are lazy and spoiled, especially young people. I hate to break it to you (who am I kidding, I enjoying enlightening you), but there are not enough jobs to go around. Roughly speaking, there are 3.5 unemployed people per each of the much vaunted job postings you discussed. No matter how many skilled people apply for a position, they are not all going to get it in this economy. The same applies even if they all decide to take minimum wage jobs. Have you been following the news? 44% of minimum-wage workers have either attended or graduated from college. I think we can safely assume they are not waiting out for their dream job. Their dream job is having a job. Mr. Berman, these attacks on a generation are a red herring, especially when you consider long-term unemployment rates among the Baby Boomers. But I guess they must be lazy and spoiled too, because of how the GI Generation raised them. 

This economy sucks. Period. Blaming the unemployed does nothing except possibly make you feel like unemployment could never happen to you. You seem to view joblessness as something that only exists for other people who must have done something wrong. Mr. Berman, this is a fallacy and an insult to the millions of formerly hardworking Americans who have been laid off in the past few years, and all the Americans of all ages, races, creeds, and classes who want desperately to work. Many of us loved our jobs before we lost them. Many of us have taken what we could find in the interim, only to lose those jobs as well. Many of us are the victims of discriminatory hiring practices that make it difficult for the unemployment to get work. Many of us graduated in the middle of a terrible market and could never get a leg up. Many of us have put having families on hold. Many of us have put owning a house on hold. Many of us avoid seeing our friends and family out of poverty and shame. Many of us go to bed every night praying for either a miracle or to be allowed to die in our sleep. 

And here Mr. Berman, is where I am going to engage in the same kind of attacks that you have, employing (see what I did there?) both the ad hominem and the gross generalization. Now, I am not doing this because it helps my argument, but because it is fun. You sir, are a dumb asshole. Unfortunately, you are not alone. The audiences of the GOP debates were filled with your ilk. You do not have any facts to back your assertions up, relying instead on worn-out narratives that have been applied to every previous generation. Despite setting yourself up as some sort of expert, you offer no real solutions to the problems you decry either. You lack any long term vision and fail to grasp the structural issues we are mired in. On top of this, you are callous. You are mean. You are judgmental even though your previous ignorance shows you have no right to claim any sort of capacity for judgment. 

Now if you were smart and an asshole, you would at least have enough self-interest to be worried about the true causes behind the problem of persistent unemployment because it affects you. Instead of spouting off against the usual suspects guilty of the usual sins, you would have some intellectual curiosity about several real solutions. If you were dumb and kind you might not grasp the nuances of the situation, but you would at least have nice things to say to those who are suffering. Of course, it would be best if you were both smart and kind, but I am willing to settle for the other two options if it keeps you from writing another letter to the editor at the Washington Post ever again. 

The Parade of Hits Continues

Still looking for a job and a way to punch my ticket to get out of my childhood abode. Currently reading a terrible book and not sure if I want to bother reviewing it or not. Being a member of the lumpenproletariat is no fun. AND YET I still get poems published. One even has a reference to Proust. Got to keep the synapses I cultivated in college still firing. They die people, they really do. If you do not keep them activated, one day you will wake up and say "My God, what have I done!" and not get the reference!  Nevertheless, go to the Aperion Review and Misfits' Miscellany. They are waiting for you. Also, I am mentioned here.



New Listing in Poets & Writers

I am now listed as a poet in the directory over at Poets & Writers. Hopefully one day I will qualify for a listing as a (prose) writer. I guess when people ask me what I do (for a living) instead of looking down on the ground in shame I can say "I AM A POET!"

The Job Hunt Resumes

I have now returned back to Arlington, Virginia from Italy. It was an interesting experience.

We got into the mood as you can see and really absorbed the local culture and customs. We were determined to fit in and not look like tourists. I even got into a debate with Nietzschean aquatic nymph. Or maybe it was Mark Twain.

And then the former pope John Paul II knocked some sense into me.

I thought it was for this at first:

I didn't care if the Colosseum really held Rome together. But it turns out he was angry with me for being slothful, one of the seven deadly sins. So, I made my confession and swore to find employment of the gainful nature.

You can read about the vow here at my side project, I Don't Want to Be a Manchild.

On an unrelated note, here is a poem by Tom Savage I found amusing. If any of you readers want to send me things to check out and post, whether by you or your loved ones, let me know. I'm always looking to add content.