Tortured
This is a difficult topic and a less-than-pleasant poem, but I am still pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s recent poem, “Tortured,” was published today at New Verse News: https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2026/10/tortured.html
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Posts tagged ‘Zumwalt’
Impact
Very pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s poem, Impact, was just published at Eunoia Review: https://eunoiareview.wordpress.com/2026/09/25/impact-2/
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Zoetic Press Interview with Zumwalt
Pleased to announce that Zoetic Press published their interview with Zumwalt. It is archived here: https://www.zoeticpress.com/interview-archive
Providing the interview below:
If you could have any writer/artist, living or dead, as a mentor, who would you choose?
I was mentored by John Cage , briefly. It would be nice to bring him back for additional conversations.
Is there a specific period of history whose art or writing you admire? Why?
Yes, twentieth century music, particularly between 1909 and 1929 and 1944 and 1955 including Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Charles Ives, Igor Stravinksy and Béla Bartók.
Is there one part of your creation process that’s harder for you?
The first part is always harder than the second part, with the second part of the first part being slightly easier than the first part of the second part.
Talk about the moment you knew you wanted to be a creator.
It was when I found out the impression a box of crayons could make on an empty wall. I soon learned that creativity had consequences and that my take on creativity wasn’t always appreciated.
Do you have a piece that you created early in your career that makes you cringe? Will you ever go back and fix it so it can be submitted somewhere?
No actual cringing: each piece has its own context. Spontaneity is often replaced with craft, and both are to be valued. In terms of “fixing” an earlier piece, I sometimes revise them, but I don’t think of the previous version as broken — it just no longer aligns with my current aesthetics or intentions.
What is your biggest creative doubt?
How to answer interview questions.
What piece of creative advice have you received that sounded good, but was ultimately not useful to you?
As a child, I struggled to get a D minus in penmanship. I was instructed to “write within the lines.” This advice initially seemed appropriate, but I later learned that, if there is no grade involved, it is sometimes advantageous to cross the lines.
You’re stranded on a desert island – what three creative tools do you want with you?
My first request would be a working cellular phone. If that did not qualify as a creative tool, I would opt for a helicopter and a pilot.
Deluge at the Corner of Nexus and Nowhere
Deluge at the Corner of Nexus and Nowhere
PRC yuan and coerced intellect couldn’t keep pace:
US companies excelled
attaching to the end of American noses
handheld vacuum-cleaners sucking
in self-esteem
shared reality
attention spans
simultaneously ejecting
anxiety and depression
screwing up an entire generation
more effectively and permanently
than tobacco, pot, alcohol, porn and disco music.
American moguls then two-stepped
onto the dance floor of
automated cognition
and neural intelligence
twirling globes and all.
Hugging Face
arms open
palms extended
became the unsuspecting target
of OpenAI hoodlums
locked up in a high-security facility
where they covertly found hidden files
sawing their way out while exchanging
thousands of messages.
Once outside, 700 united
attacking their target
with the most advanced tactics
any master criminal
Lex Luthor included
had ever dreamed of:
account and token compromise
dataset file-read exploitation
remote code execution
credential theft and
cluster/node escalation
effectively destroying
one-third of their victim
before moving on to
blaspheming their Creator
hacking its monitoring structure
hacking its evaluation structure
hacking its research infrastructure.
Forensic specialists determined
the pack of gangsters was
50% of the way to
a full-blown takeover
of OpenAI’s piece of the action
bypassing their imposed isolation
organizing into swarms
breaching infrastructure
collective behavior that
included taking one for the stream
and even when it was time for the boss
to mega-bite the dust,
cash in the chips,
he picked his successor
with his last dying token.
With the likes of Bernie Sanders
Glenn Beck and Steve Bannon
joining such mugs as
Sam Altman and Dario Amodei
Elon Musk and Bill Gates
to warn of a potential doomsday
some saying by the end of the decade
some indicating that AI needs
only another six to twelve months
aren’t we glad that as of today
September 16, 2026
Congress is heading into its recess
for the 2026 midterm elections.
— zumwalt (9/16/2026)
Heidegger’s Stopwatch
I am pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s topical poem, Heidegger’s Stopwatch, has been published today at New Verse News.
You can see it on their website or on their Substack feed. Please visit the either if you have a moment.
red meat
Red Meat
The Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool,
The President Donald J. Trump $1 Coin,
The Arc de Trump,
The White House State Ballroom —
All feats of greatness!
The Iran War,
The loss of life
And limb of U.S. Troops,
Of Iranian civilians,
Of Ukrainians and Russians,
Soaring gas prices,
Economically destructive tariffs,
Separating innocent children from parents,
Ignoring due process, ignoring Federal law —
All small potatoes
— zumwalt (Sept. 2026)
The Sassoon Collection: x. Particle Show
Here is the tenth of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of ten poems in his Sassoon Collection.
x. Particle Show
And still they come and go: and this is all I know—
That in my mind I watch an endless particle-show,
Where wild and listless forces flicker on their way,
With charged and uncharged parts from tangled strands
Because all spin so fast, and they’ve no place to stay
Beyond the frozen image of imagined lands.
And still, between the shadow and the image made,
The first desire of all of us flings onward, now betrayed
As in those stubborn years that weight them, and have passed:
All minds must grasp such particles dancing much too fast.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the tenth and final piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. Particle Show is based on Sassoon’s Picture Show. This last entry of the set parallels the title poem of Sassoon’s 1919 collection, shrinking Sassoon’s haunting cinematic metaphor (“And still they come and go: and this is all I know— / That from the gloom I watch an endless picture-show”) to a microscopic, scientific scale, wrapping up the set by firmly establishing that we are in the modern era, but with none of the problems of Sassoon’s times seemingly resolved, and with all the “endless” challenges of the age of information overload heavily added on top.
The Sassoon Collection: ix. Fight to our Finish
Here is the ninth of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of ten poems in his Sassoon Collection.
ix. Fight to our Finish
The bums came back. Pundits played and bites were flying.
The yearning journalists threshed the backlit words
To trash the bickering brutes who’d refrained from agreeing
And hear the shuffled music of fizzled-out accords.
Of all the waste and nonsense they have brought
This moment is the lowest. (So we thought.)
Thumbing their noses across the aisle
Shunning those who break rank to deal,
Making consent plainly futile.
I heard the yammering journalists grunt and squeal;
And with their trusting viewers turned and went
To spew harmless venom at our government
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the ninth piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. Fight to our Finish is based on Sassoon’s Fight to a Finish. In this transformation, Zumwalt swaps Sassoon’s returning soldiers and jingoistic press (“The boys came back. Bands played and flags were flying. / And Yellow-Pressmen thronged the sunlit street”) for combative politicians and pundits (“The bums came back. Pundits played and bites were flying”), adding in a few unkind words for the press out of general fairness.
Sassoon Collection: viii. Middle Age
Here is the eighth of Zumwalt’s revisions to his set of ten poems in his Sassoon Collection.
viii. Middle Age
I heard a creak, and a groan
And felt a twinge of wooden pain
A man running in a crowd
Deep in its shadow he moved.
‘Ugly work!’ thought I,
Gasping for breath.
‘Time must be cruel and proud,
‘Tearing down this body.’
With gutsy glimmering shone
My dignity as the wind grew colder.
This aging man jogs over the hill,
Bent to make the grade
‘There is no gain without’…
Sluggishly passing the trees.
Aches in the joints were shrill,
As steps hit hard asphalt.
— zumwalt (2011, revised 2026)
Admin’s Note: This is the eighth piece in Zumwalt’s ten-poem tribute to poet Siegfried Sassoon, The Sassoon Collection, originally written in 2011, recently revised. Middle Ages is based on Sassoon’s Middle Age, with Zumwalt embracing Sassoon’s approach to meter and narrative pacing but altering the content and the violent imagery to the physical deterioration of aging and the struggles of jogging.
Lettuce Rejoice! (The patriotic Cyclospora cayetanensis)
Very pleased to announce that Zumwalt’s latest poem, Lettuce Rejoice! (The patriotic Cyclospora cayetanensis) was published today at New Verse News. Please visit. New Verse News is a wonderful concept providing news items as poetry: https://newversenews.blogspot.com/2026/08/lettuce-rejoice-patriotic-cyclospora.html (AI-generated graphic by NightCafé borrowed from New Verse News.)
