Here is the first poem I ever wrote. I was a smartass thirteen-year-old. My teacher was offended. My father intervened, and my grade was changed from an “F” to “complete.”

free verse

that means I don’t have to write it
or title it

I won’t

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I continue to experiment with capitalization, punctuation, white space and shape, punctuation and other symbols, the sound and the sense, constraints, hermit crab containers, traditional forms, and justification. By that I mean right, left, center – none of us ever need justify writing poems.