This summer's tour culminated with two weeks in Vermont, for my second appearance at the Bookstock literary festival (along with some of my heros: Ocean Vuong, Carolyn Forché, Ilya Kaminsky, Vievee Francis & Matthew Olzmann, among others) and a reading at the Lamp Shop in Burlington. It was a fitting way to end the worldwind 3 months which took me and my girlfriend, Skye Jackson, through the Southwest of the U.S. and then all the way to Paris and back; Burlington is where I c

This summer, I spent 3 months on the road, touring to 11 cities in 5 countries in 2 hemispheres. The first leg took me up the East coast of the U.S. with a mysterious Chilean documentary filmmaker named Jordi Goya. We started filming in New Orleans in mid-May, and then hit the road in my green '93 Capri convertible, which I bought in Slidell for $1600 and a case of beer, and which Jordi promptly christened, 'El Verde'. First stop: Asheville, North Carolina - a city I haven't

photo by Robbie Quinn Photography A fallen-angel of academe who's crawling back up the ivory tower on his hands and knees, last year I won a poetry prize from the University of New Orleans. But then my mother died and my family and love life was ripped apart. I hid in the mountains of northern California, I hid in the mountains of Quetzaltenango, I hid in plain sight on Calle de Obispo in Havana, writing poems for pastry sellers to give to their girlfriends, and to fat touris