A Very Sad Loss

Very saddened and upset to find out that Vertigo Xi'an Xavier has suddenly and unexpectedly passed away. This is awful, terrible, and totally unfair.

Vertigo was a genuinely unique, truly one-of-a-kind, supportive, open-minded, oddly-amusing, creative, hard-working poetry creature who performed, wrote, Slamministrated, edited and published (he started his small press, The Poet's Haven, way back in 1997!).

He was a weirdo and he was super-duper nice. I never heard him trash or attack anyone else (which seems to be a rare trait to come by these days), except for via Super Villian Politics ("We oppose everything that has been doing the world harm and will force the world back on to the path of forward progress... whether it wants us to or not.").

He invited me and my teeny tiny press to poetry readings and events when I was relatively new to the area and felt like I hardly had any friends and he helped get me involved with poetry stuff around my new location.

At the end of April, he bought my recent poetry chapbook, "DARK PURPLE INTERSECTIONS" at a little coffee shop book fair that both of our presses had tables at - and then just this past May, his press published my most recent poetry chapbook, "Another Set Of Ripped-Out Bloody Pigtails".

He always had tons of new creative projects in the works and it is extremely upsetting that he is suddenly gone way too soon.

He will be missed by many members of the poetry community and he will be missed by my Blood Pudding Press and by me.

Vertigo and Juliet

🖤🖤🖤