Storytelling that blurs the lines and cuts across poetry, prose poetry, flash, micro fiction, and creative nonfiction.
It’s not the categorization of the work that matters — it’s the connection it makes with readers.
Pull up a chair, stay awhile, and have a read.
Thad’s prose poetry collection, SPLENDID IRRATIONALITIES, was awarded the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2020. It was followed by YEAR OF STATIC (2021) and THIS SIDE OF UTOPIA (2023).
His writing has been nominated for the Pushcart Prize (2020, 2023), Best Microfiction (2021, 2022), the Cambridge Prize (2020), and longlisted for the Wigleaf Top 50 (2021). His work is widely published and can be found in print and online literary journals (see links below).
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BOOKS
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THIS SIDE OF UTOPIA
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“In this new collection, Thad DeVassie straddles the fine line between how we think things should go and how they ultimately play out. With equal parts heartfelt longing and comic absurdity, these poems move effortlessly from the mundane to the magical, toggling between lined and prose poems. With a voice all his own, Thad taps the haunting playfulness of Charles Simic and the otherworldly surprises of Russell Edson, showing this collection to be one continuous balancing act. Utopia might be an untenable idea, but subtle comforts and a few silver linings still exist in the here and now.”
— Cervena Barva Press
Available at:
SPLENDID IRRATIONALITIES
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Awarded the James Tate Poetry Prize in 2020 from SurVision Books, Splendid Irrationalities is a look into an off-kilter world where a reaper drives a bus, a human hologram inhabits a Boston flat, space and science take unexpected turns, and the lives of familiar and historic figures reveal their mundane and peculiar existences.
Want a signed copy? Contact me.
Also available from Bookloft.com (my hometown, local book shop) and other online book retailers.
YEAR OF STATIC
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A mix of micro prose aligned to 11 original paintings, Year of Static reveals the universal struggle to be seen, understood, and accepted — ideals that often run counter to our cognitive biases. Pulling from the Greatest Commandment in which teachers of the law questioned Jesus on what was most important, he replied: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12: 30-31). The unspoken question that lingers over a troubled society is this: how can we begin to love our neighbor well when we don’t even know our neighbor?
This short micro chap invites readers to contemplate the sparse language and arresting imagery.
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PUBLICATIONS
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A sampling of published works and live links.
POEMS / PROSE POEMS
Genesis; Exodus; Numbers — Mercurius
Exodus II (Moses); Job — Amethyst Review
A Man and His Cow at Lunchtime — Unbroken Journal
Hourglass — Full House Literary Review
Lonely Soul Wading; Last Embrace — Portmanteau LDN
The Almost Symphony; Future Instruction Manual: On Work; Future Instruction Manual: On Justice — Novus Literary Arts Journal
Clearing House — Neuro Logical
After the Tsunami; An Observation — The Remnant Archive
I’m No Climatologist — Sinking City Review
The Night Swimmer; The Fall of Us — Floodlight Editions
House of Glass, 1872 — Sublunary Review
Two Brothers — Ghost City Review
Lamentation for the Test-Taker — Pensive Journal
Recovery — Emerge Literary Journal
Scotch Pine Elegy — Nixes Mate Review
Repercussions of Drumming — *82 Review
Field Trip to the Mall — Collateral
Matryoska Dolls — Junto Magazine
A Sharp Saw — Fox Cry Review
Combustible Cities; We Live Here So You Could Visit — Pudding Magazine
King of the Barnyard — Museum of Americana
The Naked Truth — FLARE: The Flagler Review
Steer Clear of the Pistachios — Penduline
A Bunch of Crow — Welter
Do No Harm — Santa Clara Review
Billy (Collins) Doesn’t Live Here — Ampersand
Improvement District — Poetry East
Homesick — New York Quarterly
Cricket Hymn for the Apocalypse — Fifty-Two Stories
Table Manners; Holy Bread; The Studio Head Outlines His Vision for the Summer Blockbuster — PANK
Evel Knievel’s Comeback World Tour Hits a Snag — Sentence
Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance — Juked
Barber School Haircut — Concho River Review
Blue — Sycamore Review
The Problem with Word Problems — West Branch
Hearse for Sale; Straight Talk About Pants — Can We Have Our Ball Back?
Over Topeka — Borderlands: Texas Poetry Review
FLASH FICTION / MICRO PROSE
No Medical Precedent — HAD
Neighborhood Politics; Orphans — Gone Lawn
Things We Do For Loved Ones — Vast Chasm
Featherhand: Inquiry for the Dept. of Ornithology — Hex Literary
Difficulties Walking Our Donkey — South Florida Poetry Journal
Calling Cards — 7th Major Magazine
The Lint Factory — Talking About Strawberries All the Time
YOKO — The Birdseed
A Different Kind of Song & Dance Show — Half Empty Magazine
Powder Room with Clowns — Five Minutes
Groundwork — Splonk
Tip Cup in a Dive Bar — Pine Hills Review
Something Historic — Miracle Monocle
In Memoriam; Things Left Unsaid; Autumn Dichotomy — 50-Word Stories
Lake House; Passio — 433 Magazine
The Scientist & the Musician — Fiction Kitchen Berlin
Quartet for the End of a Time; Still Life with Aging Fruit — Flash Flood (National Flash Fiction Day)
Hat Tricks — Whiskey Rye Review
All the Covers — Spelk
Back to Base Camp — The Drabble
In the Process of Writing This, I Remember the Importance of Forgetting the Details - Lunate
Everything Is Random — Unbroken Journal
The Dawn of Spectator Sports — Back Patio Press
Existential Sparrows — Saint Katherine Review
Let’s Call This Something Other Than What It Really Is — FLASH: International Short Story Magazine
The Procrastinator’s Story — Ucity Review
Circus Truths — NANO Fiction
Earthtonium & Other White Lies — The North American Review
CREATIVE NONFICTION (CNF)
Manitou — Nurture Literary Magazine
Miracle Jar — a u t o f o c u s
Signing Your Life Away — Schuylkill Valley Journal
Disappearing Act — FEED
Memento Mori — (mac)ro(mic)
Rivulets — Rathalla Review
Those Misfiring Synapses — Barely South Review
ANTHOLOGIES
Quiet Correspondence — All Poems Are Ghosts: An Anthology (2023; Tiny Wren Lit, edited by Dana Knott, Louisa Schnaithmann)
Ghost Bus / Everything Is Random — Contemporary Surrealist and Magical Realist Poetry — An International Anthology (2022; Lamar University Press, edited by Jonas Zdanys)
Holy Bread — Flash Nonfiction Food: 91 Very Delicious, Very True, Very Short Stories (2020; Woodhall Press, edited by Tom Hazuka and Kathryn Fitzpatrick)
INTERVIEWS / FEATURES
Art of Writing — Interview with Malcolm Curtis, Editor of Talking About Strawberries All the Time (April 2023)
Writing is Everything — Interview with Leia Butler of Full House Literary Review (2021)