Edited by Brian Fanelli and Joe Kraus, Currents in the Electric City: A Scranton Anthology will be published July 16, 2024. The Belt Publishing paperback features work by a couple dozen writers both local or with local ties. It is available for pre-order now. Trust me, you’re going to want a copy.

I’ve written about Scranton so much since moving back to the area in 1999, I struggled to pen a new piece that captures my conflicted relationship with NEPA. It’s not love/hate, exactly. Hate is too strong a word. I will always defend our underdog city against those who feel no shame picking on easy targets. But why should I be so fiercely loyal to a place that has let me down as much as it’s supported me? That’s the question “song of the city electric” tries to answer. It took most of 2022 for me to write and revise the two-part poem. I literally finished it on New Year’s Eve 2022.

Like other poems I’ve written, it’s meant to be performed and I anticipate the opportunity to share the work with you at one or more events this summer when the book is released. I’d like to memorize it. If it takes me as long to commit to memory as it did to write, I’d better get to work on that soon. -ag