Unlikely Stories Presents

TERRANCE LEIGHTNER has a stupid fucking identity and sad goddamn job

To the Unlikely Stories home pageThe works of Terrance Leightner come in like a tornado. Highly entertaining, they study, with a wry, dark humor, drug addiction, violence, and the author's eternal obsession with words. Intricate and absorbing, the poems reveal madness in a way that we will all recognize. We present six fine poems and a short story here.

Terrance says, "I am an English teacher and a softball coach. Were I to relate my poetry submissions to the diamond, I would be batting .500. This makes my third acceptance out of six at-bats, the other two being poems published in Atom Mind and Black Cross. I have what I term 'writer's balk,' or an odd aversion to stepping up to the plate and submitting. Perhaps it is because I fear striking out, perhaps it is because I fear letting the world hear about my own. Enough with the goddamn softball analogy. I write because I feel I have to, that if I didn't, I would be either dead or in jail. Writing for me is not an option, it is a necessity, and my busy work-a-day career bullshit is directly opposed to the demons that need excorcised. I rarely have enough time to read anymore, but when I do, it is either Bukowski or the beat novelists. Buk is simply the only poet thus far (although a shout goes out to Scott C. Holstad) that really speaks my language, and I enjoy the jubilant hedonism of Kerouac, Burroughs, Ginsberg and company. If I could give one elemental reason for writing poems, short stories, and novels, it would be to establish common ground with like-minded people. To this point, I have found few." You can write to him at buksmyhero@msn.com.

Terrance's works here at Unlikely Stories are:

2001:
how was your day?
Christmas Eve in Trailerville
the fight
typer as adversary
trailerpark monks
duct tape drapes
Terminal Prejudice