Category: Poems

LUX Magazine & the “JFK, Reconsidered” Text

  The literary journal LUX, which is the multimedia counterpart to Lumina Magazine out of Sarah Lawrence, is publishing a section of a cross-media book I’m working on. A section of this experiment is set to be published by LUX, & I’ll update this page then with more details, but if you follow this link, you can […]

Hiccups, a new book of short poems

My second collection of poems, Hiccups, is now out from Augury Press & available for order through Small Press Distribution & Amazon. You can also read some sample poems on the SPD site. Taking cues from a myriad of short forms—haiku, epigram, bon mot, aphorism, senryū—the poems in Joe Pan’s Hiccups search out unexpected ways […]

“Hiccups” to be published by Augury Books in 2015

I was in LA this past week when I opened my inbox to a terrific email from Kate at Augury Books informing me that they wanted to publish my book of short poems, Hiccups, in May of 2015. The book is a basically a love letter/travelogue broken into 250 short poems. I’ll update the site as more information […]

The Vargas-Vargas Affair

  “The Vargas-Vargas Affair” is a poem I wrote that deals primarily with narrative’s possibly innate (hard-wired) ability to sway judgement. It can transfix us. It has the ability to build within us empathy for a character & ultimately for each other, but it can also be a great tool for propaganda. There is always […]

Dear Jack

  Dear Jack, I wanted to say I opened your letter to Lorca, but before you get upset, know that I hear you when you say the personal adventure will at best show in the lovely pattern of cracks where autobiography shatters but does not quite destroy the surface of a poem, & that this […]

Ode to the MQ-9 Reaper (a poem by Joe Pan)

  I would like to thank the editors of Epiphany, in particular Brian Turner & Martin Rock, for their help in publishing “Ode to the MQ-9 Reaper” in print & partially online in their Winter/Spring 2013 War issue, as well as allowing me to talk a bit about the process of writing the poem (which is […]

Another 6 AM Poetry Scramble

I’ve been up all night, all January actually, working on books. Prepping for BAP’s first AWP. I’ve uploaded a free copy of a catalogue I’ve created to give away at the conference. Just click the link below and it’s yours. The writers and books included are: 10,000 Wallpapers by Matt Shears Darling Endangered by Carol […]

Autobiomythography & Gallery

I’ve updated the page for my first book of poems, Autobiomythography & Gallery. Check it out by clicking the link above!

Hic-to-the-Ippity-Ups

  Noon moon, city sidewalk a gyro draped in aluminum. The child holding his coat aloft by one arm is held aloft by one arm. Park leaves breaking into color. Two blind men compare dogs. Even the old dog in snow wonders at its breath. The cow under dogwood is the glove nuzzling away the […]

Chron*OS

First published in Art World (UK), 2009. The editor was looking for an ekphrastic poem. I had written a poem inspired by Olafur Eliasson’s 360 Degree Room of All Colours (2002), which she accepted. I had walked into the Eliasson art space & was immediately freaked out by how easily time became unhinged for me […]

Operating System: Eg*OS

I published this poem with Scapegoat Review not this spring but last. It was one of my first Operating System poems, which I already thought of in terms of being another form of autobiomythography (read past poem to learn a bit more about what these are). It feels a bit sparse now. Jabby & rabbit-punching, […]

The New Newer

  How can I put this? Star Wars is the new Odyssey. No new news but still news. No? If one believes in a populace representing their own beliefs & choosing new characters as heroes. If not, there’s always academia. There’s always an -ism, which means an earlier stab at dominant theory revived into council […]

Each Day, a Crumb

  So I’m going to try & post something new each day. A poem piece, a little nugget of text, fragments of a story in progress, something. So today, four hiccups (haiku-like poems) that began & ended my last attempt at blogging: onward, upward, forever westward eyeing eastly, uneasily & perhaps awkwardly, but openly, hopefully: […]

Ode to the MQ-9 Reaper

I spent the summer doing many things, including traveling to South Africa and writing an ode to a killing machine. This is the first of nine sections of that ode. It will be one of the “Operating Systems” poems when I figure out which *OS best suits it. Ode to the MQ-9 Reaper (EDIT: I’ve […]