I’m very pleased to have an extensive interview in the Spring / Summer issue of Wisconsin People and Ideas, which is published by the Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters.  In my 5Q interview, I talk about But Our Princess, video games as art, Horatio Alger, cigarettes, indigo buntings, lakes, evil pickles, the forthcoming I got off the train at Ash Lake, and rain gauges.  Among other things.

The print version of the magazine also includes two poems from Princess.  I haven’t posted one in a while, so give it up for Peoria and “Rampage.”

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Rampage

Alright, Peoria, I’m tired of this three-building town. The people shrieking like teakettles. The apothecary that glows in the dark. The riflemen shooting as if they were frosting a cake—nothing but petaled sugar.

In school, we’ve all seen movies about lizards, the way they sit still except for the rotating turrets of their eyes, until they unroll their tongue like a party favor at the funeral of some poor ant. We learn scientists pour questions into capsules, label them Eat Me, then tell us to report should we experience any answers. We know toasters and cigarettes both smoke.

O Peoria, don’t you love St. Louis anymore? And what about that lovely little Davenport? The way its lock could talk for hours with your dam.

It’s getting late, helicopters dragging dark netting behind them. Will I play in Peoria? Am I ready to rock? Because I only break two things on purpose:

My ex-lovers’ windows. My future lovers’ hearts.