2021//limited edition 80 copies

john compton (b. 1987) is gay poet who lives in kentucky. his poetry resides in his chest like many hearts & they bloom like vigorously infectious wild flowers. he lives in a tiny town, with his husband josh and their 3 dogs and 2 cats. he feels his head is an auditorium filled with the dead poets from the past. poems are written and edited constantly. his poetry is a personal journey. he reaches for things close and far, trying to give them life: growing up gay; having mental health issues; a journey into his childhood; the world that surrounds us. he writes to be alive, to learn and to grow. he loves imagery, metaphor, simile, abstract language, sounds, when one word can drift you into another direction. he loves playing with vocabulary, creating texture and emotions. he has published 2 books and 5 chapbooks published and forthcoming: trainride elsewhere (august 2016) from Pressed Wafer; stranger in the attic of cloud (tba) from dead man's press ink; that moan like a saxophone (december 2016) from kindle; ampersand (march 2018) from Plan B Press; a child growing wild inside the mothering womb (june 2020) from ghost city press; i saw god cooking children / paint their bones (oct 2020) from blood pudding press; to wash all the pretty things off my skin (sept 2021) from ethel zine & micro-press. he has been published in numerous magazines and anthologies.

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In john compton ́s compelling sixth chapbook, it's impossible not to fall under the spell of image after dazzling image. From the start, he takes us on a journey through his dreams, in which “lines fall loose / like cherry blossoms.” But in his hands, dreams are fickle creatures, where “the air is bland” and “my machine-head is degraded,” where the speaker is constantly seeking a radiance that seems to slip through his fingers and land just short of the page, a striking
contradiction, given that the poems in this book are nothing short of radiant. In essence, compton is rising, like the spirits of his muses, out of his words. He is toppling the walls of rejection, shouting, “i am beautiful,” and at the same time, demonstrating to us the astonishing effect that visceral poetry like his can have on each and every one of our senses.

─Julie Weiss, author of
The Places We Empty (Kelsay Books, 2021)

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This lyrical collection is a house transformed by cluster bombs with a window whispering lies. It’s a house for Plath, Sexton, and Jesus, for language falling loose like cherry blossoms, a fragile foundation with ghosts inside. It’s a house of dreams and desire, hands and spit, of shells in the garbage can—beautiful in their brokenness. This house, these poems will haunt you—leave you wanting more.

—Kathryn de Lancellotti, author of Impossible Thirst