Sep 04 2020 26 mins
Listen to poet, John Compton, read his poetry and discuss his journey into writing poetry, publishing, and connecting with industry folks!
http://yourartsygirlpodcast.com
https://www.facebook.com/josh.
Bio: John Compton (formerly John Thompson) is a 33-year-old gay poet who lives in Kentucky. His poetry resides in his chest like many hearts & they bloom like vigorously infectious wild flowers. He has published 1 book and 5 chapbooks: "trainride elsewhere" (August 2016/TBA) from Pressed Wafer/Rouge Wolf Press; "that moan like a saxophone" (December 2016); Ampersand (March 2019) from Plan B Press; "a child growing wild inside the mothering womb" (June 2020) from Ghost City Press; "burning his matchstick fingers his hair went up like a wick" (Fall), From Dark Heart Press, "to wash all the pretty things off my skin" (end of 2021) from Ethel Zine & Micro-Press. Compton has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.
https://ghostcitypress.com/2020-summer-series/a-child-growing-wild-inside-the-mothering-womb
https://www.planbpress.com/store/p56/ampersand_by_john_thompson.html
https://www.amazon.com/that-moan-like-saxophone-thompson-ebook/dp/B01NBP6JL3
winter poem
mouth open
letting snow cover my burial plot
of words
& fingers too cold to dig
the tongue out:
frozen corpse,
the stature of teeth chirping
a ruptured poem
we seeded him holy
you'll find him in a chair
sequenced
gay is vandalism
we used white rags &
smoke to purify him
to bleach the sin, to poach the black resin
from the heart-skin
to bring him
right
by rules of man
his arms & ankles tied
crosswise
the naked body a rosary
bead tucked in each wound
how we bury fish
motionless in my womb...
i remembered
my fish - i was eight.
it was floating belly up.
i tapped on my stomach
as a mother – a little girl
trying to tap her fish
from sleep.
i gave birth to a stillborn.
my father explained to me
how we bury fish: i heard the toilet flush
behind my sobbing.
John Compton Book Launch and Open Mic with Redheaded Stepchild
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4IlBdFVBCcE