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Howard
Camner's most recent book, The
Hiss, spans 80 pages and is actually one long poem.
His work has filled pages in the Taj Mahal Review, Tamafyhr
Mountain Poetry and the Bristol Banner Books
Anthology Series to which he regularly contributes. More
work is due out in The Mean Anthology. At night,
Howard teaches juvenile delinquents, who prefer to be called
"Thugs". He gets the occasional death threat, but considers that
one of the great perks of teaching. He says that poetry did not
just change his life, poetry saved his life. Poetry gave him a
voice when he wanted to be heard and even when he didn't. "Like
Frankenstein's monster poetry can go after its creator", he
says. Years ago, while performing on stage, Howard 'had words'
with a noisy waiter who lunged at him. He hit the poor waiter in
the chest with the microphone stand, bolted out the stage door,
ran down Broadway and into hiding for three months, thinking
he'd killed the man. During that time, he wrote a 100 page poem
called Road Note Elegy. The epic poem
may have been published twice, but he still doesn't understand a
word of it. He's resisted publishing on the internet for a long
time--rejection letters in split seconds were too traumatic for
this sensitive and fragile poet—but he now publishes
selectively. About Florida, he quotes a friend: "If the
United States was a human body, Miami would be the rectum"—but
there are some good restaurants.
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