Stalking is not something we necessarily have a very good understanding of as a society. We tend to imagine stalkers as sad individuals with so little going on in their own lives that they fully attach themselves to someone else’s. We envisage stalking in a simplistic way – we conjure up images of a man following a woman around dark corners and sneaking into her garden to simply be near her. Most troubling is that our popular image of the stalker often paints them as a creepy but ultimately harmless figure – too sad to be taken seriously.

But this could not be any further from the truth. A 2017 study from the University of Gloucestershire found that stalking behaviours were present in 94% of intimate partner or domestic homicides. Dr Jane Monckton Smith, a researcher leading on the study, urged police forces to reconsider their methods of assessing risk…

My enemy is strong
All she must do is
Drop a thimbleful of doubt
A wee dram of sourness
Into my dry parched mouth
While I let it quench my
Soul a pitted sponge
Soaks it up
Perilously thirsty
For approval
Ever absent
I take the poison
In lieu of love

I have received word from Kelsay Books, that my new collection, Riffs and Improvisations, will be published this coming May. In the meantime, here are some new and recent publications.

Some Scene4 columns:

https://www.scene4.com/0321/gregoryluce0321.html A review of Megan Alpert’s excellent poetry collection The Animal by Your Side.

https://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/2021/feb-2021/0221/gregoryluce0221.html Space Is Still the Place about the music of Sun Ra.

https://www.scene4.com/archivesqv6/2020/oct-2020/1020/gregoryluce1020.html How to Poem

I have two poems in the latest issue of ArLiJo: http://www.ArLiJo.com

Stay tuned for more news and reading announcements.

So many uncomfortable feelings
What shall I do with them?
This one I’ll avoid, catch a bullet train away from
This one I’ll shove in a drawer, tightly, amongst my worn-out knickers
This one I’ll stuff down my throat, with a cinnamon bun to chase it
This one I’ll hide up a tree for later, amongst the ripening fruit
This one curls me up, like a newborn babe in terror
This one I’ll push high inside, right up near my cervix
This one I’ll pass on to you, contagious miasma of melancholy
This one I’ll let ignite me, set my jaw on fire
This one makes me buy things:
This thing makes me feel worthy, and that thing makes me feel loved, and this thing makes me look thin, and that thing makes me feel rich, and this one means I belong, and that one brings me peace, and this…