Documents

. He received his BA in Creative Writing from San Francisco State University and his MFA in Poetry from Columbia College Chicago.

How insulting and misinformed, though easy to understand, because America tends to be locked in on itself as any center of the world, and the Philippines keeps representing itself as a tourist destination with beaches every-where.

I followed then unfollowed Oliver de la Paz on Instagram because I got bored or jealous seeing his kids at the pumpkin patch, opening presents, eating spaghetti.

This water movement is referred to as thermohaline circulation. O

It was my first year at grad school when I began waking up in the mornings with a weight pressing down on my chest.

My brothers have been to Mexico, Italy, France, England, Cuba, Canada. “You’d love it there and there and there and there” I stare back and say nothing.

There are always small swaying boats and lights strung up above tables and old men with hairy knuckles pouring me purple wine leaning in to me because we have grown old in the same place and at the same time.

All of my fantasies are set elsewhere: Spain or Iceland or Greece.

I thought that a city like Chicago, big city as it was, would be different.

Legend has it that James Tate decided to be a poet when he crossed out the word MOUNTAIN and wrote the word VALLEY. Just like that. I just wasn’t myself. I couldn’t enjoy it. I didn’t know how to be.