A Poet Out of Place
Jim LaVilla-Havelin
May 1, 2022
sometimes Texas seems so unlikely that
even Staten Island feels more like it
and, I guess, finally it’s where you are
most at home – but what that has to do
with the work – a fish out of water dies,
does that mean, without connection we
wither, fade, stop making sense? or is
a poet out of place alive in words? Yes,
particular. Yes, personal. Yes, specific.
but somehow, gracefully the words make
their own place, find their own landscape
and it is nothing like and everything like
Texas.
Jim LaVilla-Havelin is the author of six books of poetry. His most recent, TALES FROM THE BREAKAWAY REPUBLIC, a chapbook, was published by Moonstone Press, Philadelphia, in May 2022. LaVilla-Havelin is the Poetry Editor for the San Antonio Express-News and Coordinator for National Poetry Month in San Antonio.
