The Fevers of the Mind Press has a huge collective of poets, writers, interviews, recommendations & more in the new book https://amzn.to/3sjgWnz (Deluxe edition) *released early 2021*
includes contributions from myself (David L O’Nan), HilLesha O’Nan, Rob Z photography, Ankh Spice, Catrice Greer, the Poetry Question & Chris Margolin, Jenna Faccenda, Ethan Jacob O’Nan, Icefloe Press, Robert Frede Kenter, Moira J Saucer Darren Demarree, Abdulmueed Balogun, Bradley Galimore, Anisha Kaul, Foy Timms, David Ralph Lewis, Paul Brookes, Sidney Mansueto, Lawrence Moore, Karen Mooney, Jenny Mitchell, Makund Gnanadesikan, James Lilley, Richard Waring, Vern Fein, Ediney Santana, Rachael Ikins, Samantha Terrell, Al Matheson, Ceinwed C E Haydon, Will Schmit, Dai Fry, Barney Ashton-Bullock, M.S. Evans, Megha Sood, Jane Rosenberg LaForge, Matthew M C Smith, Lucy Whitehead & Merril Smith as well as an interview with Americana/Indie/Punk musician Austin Lucas ,Troy Jackson, Book Reviews for Hokis, David Hanlon, Susan Richardson & Norb Aikin, Karlo Sevilla, Steve Denehan, A.R. Salandy, Steve Wheeler, Sher Ting, December Lace, Ken Tomaro, Kushal Poddar, Tan Tzy Jiun, Amy Barnes, Jason DeKoff, Raine Geoghegan, Jim Young, Tim Heerdink, Damien Donnelly, Kristin Garth, Mela Blust, Jackie Chou, Rickey Rivers Jr, David Hay, Kari Flickinger, John Ogunlade, Z.D. Dicks, Julie Stevens, Gayle Sheridan, Wil Davis, Samantha Merz, Iona Murphy, Gerald Jatzek, KC Bailey, Samuel Strathman, Mike Whiting, Peter Hague, E Samples, Ann Hultberg, Jane Dougherty, Michael Igoe, Maxine Rose Munro, John Everex, Lacresha Hall, Kelly Marie McDonough, Gabe Louis, Linda M Crate
Deluxe Edition is over 300 pages and includes all of the Poets, writers, interviews, musicians, photography & more.
Q1: When did you start writing and first influences?
David: I believe I began writing after having my older brother read his poetry to me. I would constantly read his stuff. He was always obsessed with song lyrics (Prince, U2, The Cure, The Smiths, The Beatles, etc) I really got into the Beatles around 12 years old, and began to write bad love songs & songs against war that were pretty cheesy. I’ve always had a storytelling imagination. I began reading Anne Sexton as a teenager and always have been a big song lyric absorber. With A.D.D. I wasn’t always the most patient with reading.
Q2: Who are your biggest influences today? Well once I started writing & reading aloud more at coffeehouses, I began learning & reading more poetry & writers. Burroughs, Kerouac, Sylvia Plath, Tom Waits, Townes Van Zandt, Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan, my favorite Leonard Cohen, Ilya Kaminsky, so many contemporaries I interact with in the Poetry & Writing Community.
Q3: Any pivotal moment when you knew you wanted to be a writer?
David: I still want to be a writer/poet. I am still learning at 41 years old the ins and outs. I guess I had that inkling around 12, then again at 20 writing angsty stuff (mad about women letting me down) and then 24/25 when I began frequenting a coffeehouse in Evansville. I began writing a scrapped up novel “The Bible Belt Bachelor” in the same vain as “On the Road” I had a break in writing through most of my 30s and then when my dad got sick with ALS I began writing more & more. Self published some stuff & began Fevers of the Mind.
Q4: Who has helped you most with writing?
David: My brother, my wife, the Penny Lane Coffeehouse, Reading aloud for several years (not so much anymore), Jean Kizer, Jerry Masterson, Heidi Krause, Twitter vss 365 getting me motivated again, Poetry Community, Leonard Cohen
Q5: Where did you grow up and how did that influence your writing & did any travels away from home influence your work?
David: I grew up in a small town in Kentucky called Sebree.
So, I do have many poems based on small town living in a Southern/Midwestern town. I carry over some personality (ies) from the town and interact them into new characters and situations at times. I have lived in Evansville, Indiana most of my adult life & now in Henderson, KY and I still write the same way. Perspectives from where i’m writing from doesn’t necessarily come from where i’m living. I have visited & lived for a short time in New Orleans, so much of my big city themed poetry comes from time living there, or visiting Nashville, Louisville, Lexington, St. Louis, Indianapolis, Bloomington and other Midwestern cities/towns.
Q6: What do you consider your most meaningful work you’ve done creatively so far to you?
David: This will be a slightly weird answer. I helped contribute poems to an anthology about ALS “Voices for the Cure” ran by Paul Rowe and the late Eric Valor. I am unsure if it ever came out, but the poems I placed in there are about my father and his battle with ALS. Some of these poems have seen the light of day in my self published work or also on this site. 2 poems by David L O’Nan about my father’s battle with ALS in 2016
I’m very proud of the community I’ve helped shape together with many writers for this site with active contributors, interviews, the Fevers of the Mind Poetry Digest Issues/Anthologies.
Q7: Favorite activities to relax?
David: General Anxiety/ADD/OCD/parenthood…relax? I try to read some, I watch wrestling, basketball, listen to music like crazy, taking walks with my wife, play in the park with my kids. Youtube wormholes, research/history.
Q8: What is a favorite line/stanza from a poem of yours or others?
David: From Leonard Cohen’s “Stories From the Street”
We are so small between the stars So large against the sky And lost among the subway crowds I try to catch your eye
Q9: Any recent or forthcoming projects that you’d like to promote?
David: Why Sure! Thanks for asking…ummm Fevers of the Mind Anthology Issue 5: Overcome will be coming out soon (currently editing) I have 6 self-published books that i’m revising (added pics to the poems, changing them up some, some revised poems) “The Famous Poetry Outlaws are Painting Walls and Whispers” “Our Fears in Tunnels” “Taking Pictures in the Dark” “New Disease Streets” “The Cartoon Diaries” “Lost Reflections” still on Amazon currently…will be replaced by new versions when announced. Stay tuned. Raw forms of these books are still out there for now. There are several past issues of Fevers of the Mind Poetry Digest: Issue 1 (June 2019) under Fevers of the Mind Poetry & Art Digest, Fevers of the Mind Issue 2 In Memoriam, Fevers of the Mind Issue 3: The Darkness & the Light, Fevers of the Mind Press Presents the Poets of 2020, the aforementioned Leonard Cohen inspired Avalanches in Poetry Writings & Art Inspired by Leonard Cohen with artwork from Geoffrey Wren Wonderful Artwork from Avalanches in Poetry Writings & Art Inspired by Leonard Cohen by artist/writer Geoffrey Wren
The 2nd Leonard Cohen Anthology will be worked on in the next month “Before I Turn Into Gold” and also Fevers of the Mind Anthologies will be coming out at least every other month as far as I can keep it going.
Personally, I have more poems/stories coming out soon with Icefloe Press. A project on facebook “Curved Air” edited by Theresa Haffner. Possibly something with the Midwest Writers Guild. I’ve recently had work in Anti-Heroin Chic, Punk Noir Magazine. In the past I’ve had stuff in 3 Moon, Nymphs Publishing, Royal Rose Magazine, Elephants Never, Headline Poetry & Press, Dark Marrow, Voices for the Cure ALS Anthology, Spillwords, Ghost City Press, a feature in Cajun Mutt Press, I’ve had some stuff of mine read by Damien Donnelly on his podcast “Eat the Storms” https://eatthestorms.com/ and will have more read by Damien in a couple of weeks. Stay tuned!
I don’t send too much out due to RSD and I put tons of time in editing, writing, my brain scrambling in and out of exhaustion. Follow us on twitter @feversof @davidLONan1 Facebook Author Page is DavidLONan1 (I don’t use it much) I don’t have Instagram…sorry.
Here are some links:
There are a million I think on this site… just search my name if interested in my poems.
(a previous version of this poem was included in The Breakup Poems, a collection ps pirro published in 2017)
Preppers
It took so much longer than anyone expected,
by the time it happened we'd nearly forgotten,
our children are old now, and theirs older still.
I remember that fortune inside that cookie,
be like water it said, and you tore it in two,
because who has that kind of time?
The soles of your boots have worn away
at the place where the weight of the world
meets the road that carried us here.
All those footsteps, all that leather,
all those people we used to be, they cling
like shadows and hide when we turn.
Did you ever think, I ask, and no, you say,
you never did, and we blink like mole people,
emerging from darkness, blind in the light.
Both of us knowing we got it all wrong,
you with your gun, me with my bowl,
you with no bullets, me with no spoon.
Daylight Savings
I spent the night
with Leonard Cohen
we were birds on a wire,
we were drunks
in a midnight choir.
We lost sleep
but saved the daylight,
it was springtime,
we were so high.
We were coins tossed
beneath a concrete bridge,
a fire burning in an oil drum,
we stumbled through
the deep hours,
losing one to foolish whim,
six months will pass
before we find it again,
In the glint of a new-rising sun
we took the uptown train
from Manhattan to Berlin,
there was music
on Clinton Street and you
looked so much older
your raincoat hardly famous
at all, just misty now
like the faded morning sky.
Come home with me Leonard
and I will do unto you what you
have done unto others
I will tie you to my kitchen chair,
and keep for myself a lock
of your hair and feed you
tea and oranges that came
all the way from China,
and pour myself like honey
into this daylight
we have saved, you, and I.
I Was One of Those
I would have fallen for you had the geography been right,
and the decades, even though it took another woman
to sing your song, and others still pierce your heart,
and you had a type and I was not it, the fates would not align,
and (even though) I could not comprehend the tales you told
or the cadence like a missed step in your poetry, still,
I was one of those.
I found you on a shelf in the used bookstore, dark eyes
full of something like soul, or desire, I saw you in the face
of my high school crush who could have been your kin,
so much your image, but he too, loved another, and died
on prom night, a pixilated photograph of his mutilated
automobile on the front page (below the fold, have mercy)
the following day.
We can be selfish in our poems, this I learned from you,
our stories tipping like drunks in search of solace, I clipped
the photograph, tucked it away in a drawer, told myself
(and no one else) that had he taken me to that dance we
would have taken a different road, and he might have lived
to discover how good he looked at 60 in a rakish fedora
and a well-cut suit.
ps pirro lives in a place by the river and blogs with some infrequency at pspirro.com
Inside this cage I hear you sing
your personal psalms
songs of woe and joy
and everything in between
during your darkest moments
supernovas shine high above
though not in your line of sight
they keep you off guard and hopeful
your face is patterned
vertical lines channeling emotions
streaming from your eyes
out in the yard shadows cast
familiar symmetrical smiles
some nights you are unprepared
to fall asleep in my arms
one day a miracle will open the door
leaving you with new ideas
either spiraling yourself far away
or forever haunting my days
The Wounded Marionette
it was hard to see the strings
stuffed inside his rucksack
as he rode the train from one town
to the next
all slumped over and needing
a miracle or two
to bring him back to his former self
they stopped the bleeding
back on the battlefield
stitched him up as best they could
sending him on his merry way
cross bar and all
staring out at the countryside
he went in and
out of consciousness
the landscape as desolate as his thoughts
leading him to wonder if the good doctor
would be able to save
his most precious possessions
Bio from 2019:
J Matthew Waters was born in Rock Island, Illinois in 1961, and grew up across the Mississippi in Davenport, IA. He graduated from the University of Iowa in 1984 with a B.A. in English. His first collection of poetry "Five Hundred Pieces," was published in 1997. His second collection, "In the Middle of Somewhere," was released as a Kindle edition in 2011. In 2013, he published "101 Chances," in both Kindle and paperback editions. His latest collection entitled "Forty-Five Revolutions per Minute" was released in December, 2015. He currently resides in Cedar Rapids, IA where he works and plays and writes.
Tell me the truth -
Not about LOVE or GOD
rain will change colour
inside wet and warm circles
I'd see the reflection - of every lover
past and present;
Tell me the truth about YOU
let us throw a penny
into a draining stream
watch a river rise over
the snubbed and decayed
where the anti - sapiosexualist
spins one hundred million voices
that sound the same -
same treadmill winds on
They roll them up - Spit them out
Please tell me the truth
(Not about Love or God)
before too many ego's
spoil this imperfect broth.
Beware of a God that Smells of Liquor
Beware of a God that smells of liquor
he'll change the route and imply the simplest of distractions
while sipping gin with cucumber (not lime)
whisper to the ocean to break our mast
among a thirsty crew that create masks;
across tables where chameleons
sleep with tanned and bitten feet;
Feast on Caldo Verde and cold sardines
clinking on wine glasses,
the slaughtered lambs are easily replenished;
pretentious permanence hangs in the hot air
where he hear nine different dialects
trying to delete the madness from the remains of day.
Weavers of tapestry point out our fates
around capes and sunken shipwrecks
gleaming under surface like opened pots of honey
shining and paused underneath in blue and turquoise green.
Make it to the island where eyes are full with rain
guide us to a vertical wind far beyond
the touch of a drunken god's watery grasp
we shall rise as the tellers of journey, birth, and past.
The River Only Flows West When the Dead Are Sleeping
Guilty sentiments
stored in cupboards
where birds -
no longer wake us with song;
If I ever see the stars
breathing out again
that majesty of light
that hangs like shining chariots -
carrying angels
across yellow moons;
I will gaze-from the corners of east and west
when our past is caught
in a clock's mechanism -
metal boats in industrial blue
sleep beneath feet
resting oyster catchers will glimpse
ends of passing
dream and waking breath
the river only flows west
when the dead are sleeping.
Bio from 2019:
Matt was born in Bristol 1971 and now lives in Newport, Wales with his partner Kelly his poems have appeared in many journals such as The Potomac Review, Foxtrot Uniform, Dodging the Rain, Here Comes Everyone, Osiris Poetry Journal, The Blue Nib, The Poetry Village, The Journal, The Dawntreader, The High Window, The Ghost City Review, L'Ephemere Review, Ink, Sweat, and Tears, Confluence, Marble Poetry Magazine, Polarity, Lakeview International Literary Journal, Matt won the Erbacce Prize for Poetry in 2015 with his first full collection of poems Dystopia 38.10 and became one of five core members at Erbracce-Press, where Matt interviews poets for the erbacce-journal, organises events and reads with the other members for the annual erbacce prize.
In 2017 Matt won the Into the Void Poetry Prize with his poem Elegy for Magadalene, and read his work across the east-coast of the USA with readings at the prestigious Cambridge Public Library Poetry Series in Boston, a guest poet appearance at The Parkside Lounge and Sip This in New York City, Matt read at his first U.S. book launch in Philadelphia and has two new chapbooks available One Million Tiny Cuts (Clare Song Birds Publishing House) and A Season in Another World (Thirty West Publishing House) plus a small limited edition booklet The Feeding (Rum Do Press) Venice and London. Matt was also one of the winners of the Naji Naaman Literary Honours Prize (2019) and has read his work across the world including The Poetry on the Lake Festival in Orta, Italy, at the Poetry Cafe in London, A Casa dos Poetas in Portugal , in New York, Boston, and Paxos in Greece, and various venues across the U.K. His second full collection Woodworm was published by Hedgehog Poetry Press in 2019.
Fevers of the Mind 