SMALL DEFINITION

For Kimberly

A poem is a thing
made of words
like a mousetrap
is made out of
wood, wire and cheese.

It’s not your job
to create its beauty.
This thing works
or it doesn’t,
just like
a trap.

Mark J. Mitchell was born in Chicago and grew up in southern California. His latest poetry collection, Roshi San Francisco, was just published by Norfolk Publishing. Starting from Tu Fu   was recently published by Encircle Publications. He is very fond of baseball, Louis Aragon, Miles Davis, Kafka and Dante. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, the activist and documentarian, Joan Juster where he made his marginal living pointing out pretty things. Now, like everyone else, he’s unemployed. He has published 2 novels and three chapbooks and two full-length collections so far. Titles on request. A meager online presence can be found at https://www.facebook.com/MarkJMitchellwriter/
A primitive web site now exists: https://mark-j-mitchell.square.site/
Mark sometimes tweets @Mark J Mitchell_Writer