I'm glad you came by. Hope you find some writing you like here.
About Jerry
Welcome! Jerry is a Vietnam veteran who later survived forty years in public school classrooms and collected degrees from UW Eau Claire, Wichita State, and the University of Kansas. He shares an old cabin in the North Carolina mountains with rescue animals, grows heirloom tomatoes, and writes a little.
Photo by Terry Poth
Recent Work
Woolly Worms at the Middle School
My first one published in 2025! Thank you, editor Christine Klocek-Lim.
Published in Eclectica, October/November 2024. Thank you to editor Christine Potter.
Springtime and Hopkins and You
Shopping for Real Estate with Wallace Stevens
First published in Rat's Ass Review, 2022. Thank you to editor Rick Bates and to WS for his investment advice.
Alas, this location is now a strip mall. First published in Sublunary Review, 2022. Thank you, editor Ruslin Garrey.
Digging Out (for Richard Kirkwood)
First published in Novus Literary Arts Journal, 2021. Thank you, editor Sandee Gertz.
On Finding an Anonymous Notebook Full of Poems
First published in Autumn Sky Poetry, 23 November 2022. Thank you to Sylvia Plath, Ted Hughes, and editor Christine Klocek-Lim.
Both were first published in Rat’s Ass Review, 2021. Thank you, editor Rick Bates.
First published in One Sentence Poems, 11 November 2022. Thank you to editors Elizabeth, Natalie, and Dave.
After Reading Ed Dorn's Gunslinger, I Go Out Again to Face That Obstinate Bass
These two poems were first published in Rat’s Ass Review, 2021 and 2023. Thank you to editor Rick Bates, and to Ed Dorn for help with a hero and Robert Browning for providing a villain.
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Pieces with various North Carolina settings:
The bird in this poem is an often unappreciated hero here in the mountains, cleaning messes off the nonexistent shoulders of our winding roads First published in Flee to Spring, 2021. Thank you, editor Ruchi Acharya.
Two Tiny Poems about two little woodland plants I look for in early March as I walk my mountainside trails.
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Below are several somewhat political poems that were all published in New Verse News at various times from 2022-2024. Thank you, editor James Penha.
An Old Man Worries on Facetime
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A couple other little things begun long ago, finished recently:
Originally published in Shot Glass Journal, #38, 2022. Thank you, editor Mary-Jane Grandinetti.
First published in MockingHeart, February 2024. Thank you, editor Tyler Sheldon.
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Four short pieces from A Year in Vietnam:
On Friday mornings army medics pulled carpules of penicillin from our dispensary freezer. US soldiers with venereal diseases lined up in the hall of the Nha Trang dispensary where I worked and were told to drop their trousers. Our Vietnamese nurse injected them one after the other. If she felt sympathetic, she warmed the carpules first; but some Fridays she did not feel that way. First published in Rat's Ass Review, 2022. Thank you, editor Rick Bates.
First published as "Green Beret Psychiatrist" in Smoky Blue Literary and Arts Magazine, 2023. Thank you, editor John Himmelheber.
Early drafts of this piece were first published in Teach. Write., 2022. Thank you, editor Katie Winkler.
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Thank you to Christian Ray for your photography and your much needed editorial assistance.