E. J. McAdams
E.J. McAdams is a poet and artist, exploring language and mark-making in the urban environment using procedures and improvisation with found and natural materials. He has published four chapbooks: '4x4' from unarmed journal press, 'TRANSECTs' from Sona Books, ‘Out of Paradise,’ an e-chapbook from Delete Press, ‘Close-range Divinities’ from Shirt Pocket Press, and most recently, 'Middle Voice’ from Dusie Kollectiv. UDP published his 4x4 – “BOOM/BOOM/BOOM/BOOM” – in its Poste series. He had a solo exhibition, an installation called Trees Are Alphabets, at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, and a mail-art piece in a group show at Phoenix Art Museum. His poems have been published in The Paris Review, EOAGH, eccolinguistics, About Place Journal, unarmed journal, and others. Recently, a selection of poems were collected in the anthology Poetics for the More-than-Human World at Dispatches from the Poetry Wars. He was chosen by Laura Mullen and Angela Hume for 'Heir Apparent' in The Volta's Trash Issue which featured a visual TRANSECT. Another visual poetry project, ‘Wayfaring,’ was covered by author Robert Sullivan on A Public Space's blog. He curated the Social-Environmental-Aesthetics reading at EXIT ART from 2009-2012 and was a founding board member of the interdisciplinary Laboratory of Art Nature and Dance (iLAND).
An Action to End Gun Violence
lips on loaded
AR muzzle
blow as if
kudu shofar:
peace
registers
its blow-
less blow!
THE REMAINDER
1.
garbled through bathroom vents
2.
if she wants to bounce she can bounce
3.
engine sounds remind me I’m not one
4.
somehow don’t let that fact get in the way
5.
downed telephone pole as good a roost as any/great blue heron
6. DARWIN:
the birds idly singing mostly live on insects & seeds & thus are constantly destroying life
7.
little material crosses self-contained diffuse Gaia border except (alleluia!!!) space dust
8. MINETTA LANE
cement meanders where stream once was
9.
son’s rainbow starship arcing toward a sun
10.
almost but not quite yet open
11.
sundog
12.
whatever we do/don’t do neutral sky there (always) out window
13.
yellow daffodils in ice
14.
with cold sleeping sparrows in the only
15.
sun//beams/gleam
16.
say what you want bad about pigeons but they can fly
17.
love has no nor never respects bounds
18.
faux corporate waterfalls
19.
sparrows so familiar in their crummy hunger, alien in all else
20.
potted evergreens as security bollards
21.
chasing each other’s other
22. HERO TIME
beginning middle end (repeat)
23.
keep us animal enough to survive
24. RIDDLE:
what’s this that is always thus and now no more than the least among all leastmost things
25.
bills pile up like snow
26.
crow missing one primary one tail feather limping into low cloud cover
27.
black lonely mountain or black misty island
28.
snow’s general Ireland over everything
29.
waiting for the poem to come I find it finally here
30. FIRST GET RID OF THE WORLD OF CERTAINTY
31.
desire lines
32. TAISHIN, THE MONK DAITEN:
In the spring of 1767, Jakuchu and I journeyed to Osaka in a boat. We did not care…
33.
infinite possibilities within the finite
34.
some days it is mystery alone gets me through
35. VALENTINE’S DAY
what have I done for love lately except use it in a sentence
36.
other days it’s mystery too
37. COLDEST DAY OF THE YEAR SAYS THE RADIO
feral cat crosses path lugs rabbit sack home
38.
empty/shell/echo
39. INTIMACY
can’t kiss my own mouth
40.
how many life points you got?
41.
deep inside my own heart I find the facts of daily life co-equal
42.
that last thought in the kingfisher’s bill
43. EJECT NO NAME
44.
ocean sand sky sand sky ocean sky ocean sand
45.
no word yet for this snow – but watch your step
46.
there’s one fuckingthing I want to know
47. BLACK CLOUD OR SILVER LINING
None smart enough to be pessimistic nor stupid enough to be optimistic..cloud..cloud..
48.
I can’t not look up
49.
raining rain rained
50.
endangered by estrangement
51.
crow wings crow bones crow cry with/against that’s how it was
52.
was day all day until it was night
53. PEOPLE
earthbound with a sweep toward the vertical
54.
wishing for the end of suffering is a kind of suffering…and yet