Promopalooza - Steven Croft – Gyroscope Review

Steven Croft

Do you have an MP3 of you reading a poem? Send it along.

Your Chapbook or Book Title, Press, Where available for sale.

New World Poems (Alien Buddha Press, 2020). Available at Amazon:

What inspired you to write this Chapbook/Book? What else should we know about it? Or just add the Blurb.

The book is bracketed by the years 2001 and 2020, so it is about my, and possibly our, experience so far of the 21^st century. The first poem is titled “9/12,” and the last poem “2020.”

What was your journey to publication like?

Not easy this past year. The initial small publisher who agreed to do the book unfortunately became very ill in this year of covid and called to tell me he was going to suspend his press until he recovered, releasing the book back to me. About that time, a journal editor emailed me to say he was nominating one of my poems for a Pushcart, and I told him of my recent dilemma with New World Poems. He graciously recommended me to Alien Buddha Press, which had published one of his books last year, and I was very fortunate in that Alien Buddha took it.

Any upcoming Chapbook/Book releases? Upcoming poems in magazines?

Right now I have poems forthcoming in “Your Daily Poem” and “Live Nude Poems” and hope to publish a new book of poems called Memory is a Lamp before the end of this year.

Your Website and Social Media Links.

Any poets or books that inspired your writing?

I was a soldier in the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Brian Turner’s book Here, Bullet was an influence on my poems about conflict in the book. In Here, Bullet, Turner writes poems from both the perspective of US soldiers and Iraqis. This kind of broader perspective is a little unusual in post-9/11 veteran writing, but I think I have adopted this broader perspective in a way, and have some persona poems in the book that attempt look at things from Middle Easterners’ viewpoints, caught up in a conflict they did not wish for.

Who are you currently reading?

Eavan Boland’s The Historians. I have always been a fan and was fortunate to be able to talk the her once at AWP. Her death affected me. Like with W.S. Merwin, she was so very dedicated to poetry that it was like I somehow expected her to go on forever.

Pay it Forward – Promote your favorite Charity, tell us why you love it, add a link.

Peter Gabriel is one of the reasons I developed an interest in the global issues of human rights. I recommend the organization he founded, WITNESS. His organization has done and continues to do important things to elevate human rights everywhere.

https://www.witness.org/get-involved/