Tantrum In The Lockeroom
Gee, how many nails can I fit into this hammer
and how many hours has the t.v. been on?
Another Dollar Store is being built in town
And no body likes M.C. Hammer anymore
Why must we throttle and king prattle thru life lying about almost everything?
Have we no guardian angels to helps us seek truth in this day and age?
You mean to tell me, lowest of lows, that they don't have an app for that?
We'll then to hell with it. I'm gonna throw a tantrum and shake my brooding soldier
And imagine we're in the locker room
And its half time of the biggest game of our lives.
Larry Fopote
Pilot Mountain, North Carolina
About the Poet:
Larry Fopote was born in Boon, West Virginia in 1974. When he was seven years old, his father, who was a Cardiologist landed a job at a prestigious hospital in Boston, Massachusetts moving the whole family in 1981.
From the age of seven until the age of twenty he was a big city kid. Then in 1994 he dropped out of Boston College and went to live deep in the woods in Southern Canada for a year on his own. The experience would have a profound impact on his life. He began writing poems during this time and eventually his first book of poems, 'Cry Me A River' was published by Wild Goat Press a year later. His poem, 'An American Gigolo With A Stutter' was included in the Anthology 'Best Mid-American Poems' of 1996 as selected by Jim Daniels. In 1997, Mr. Fopote absconded from society once again, this time relocating to a trailer in the middle of the desert ninety miles south of Alberqurque, New Mexico. Here he wrote his second book of poems entitled, "Taco Abuses and other Yellow Flowers" published a year later by the New Mexico State Press in collaboration with Milk It Arts Ltd. His poem, 'Fake Flinchers Make Lousy Bedfellows" was included in the Anthology 'Best Mid-American Poems of 1999. That year he went back to Boston College to finish his degree in Social Economics and graduated in May 2001. He wrote only a handful of poems in those two years. In 2002 he dropped out of poetry all together explaining to the Cleveland Plain Dealer, "There's so much bad poetry that its an avalanche. There's so many hungry poet dogs out there that I might as well let 'em keep yakking and eating eachother." He used his student loan money to finance a trip to Europe the last two months of 2002. He wrote only one poem in Paris, and legend has it it was a real doozy but he gave it to a waitress to whom it was dedicated and no one else has ever read it. In 2003 he was invited to give a Poetry Reading at Michigan State University as part of their Young Poet's Series.
After reading the first two poems it became apparent he was intoxicated and Fopote stopped in the middle of the third poem and went on a fifteen minute rant on how technology was killing attention spans which spun into him insulting the crowd for their own stupidities. Somebody jokingly tossed a banana up and it hit him in the foot and this so infuriated Fopote he jumped into the crowd causing a melee. He was arrested and charged with disorderly conduct. He was arrested again in 2004 in Maine for possession of Cocaine. Three months later he marries a school teacher and they have one child and live in a cabin in Maine woods. in 2005 despite the incident in Michigan, he is asked to read his poems and does at Vermont University's, 'Young Poet's On the Rise' Series. By all accounts he's the most interesting and most authentically 'blue-collar poet' out of the group. He continues to work odd jobs to raise his child but in late 2006 in busted for possession of Cocaine. His wife and child leave him. His two previous books of poems are selling well for such small presses and were in the process of being reprinted. In 2007 His wife remarries and a long custody battle over their child ensues. While intoxicated crashes his car in Montreal and spends a month in the hospital.
While in bed writes first new poems in several years. The Book becomes 'Hokie Fudge Incinerator', a series of twenty eight poems. It wins the New England Young Poet's Award for 2008 and is nominated for best book of poems by several magazines and journals. He's arrested for drunk driving later in the year and also is beaten up by six men outside a bar in Manhattan during a visit to see his family. 2009 loses all award money and loan money in a three day gambling binge in Las Vegas. Arrested for a disorderly conduct outside a strip club in Vegas. Checks into a rehab facility in Maine in November of 2009. Stays until May 2010 when he marries a lady he meets while there and they have one child. They have been living happily tucked away in the woods in Pilot Mountain, North Carolina ever since and Missing Manifest Blog is glad to have received Mr. Fopote's first public poem in over three years and we think it should be our poem of the month for March.
