6/9: Improvisations in Dependence

by John Burroughs

9 poems and 1 non-fiction prose piece by Ohio poet John Burroughs (a.k.a. Jesus Crisis). Most of 6/9's contents (the exceptions being two earlier poems that were published elsewhere that month but collected here) were written during the month of June 2009 and published on Independence Day. This hand assembled, saddle stitched chapbook features a powder blue cardstock cover and is the third Crisis Chronicles Press publication. At first, only 69 signed and hand-numbered copies were made available. When they were gone, a second set of identical but unnumbered copies were made available. All together, there are approximately 200 copies of 6/9: Improvisations in Dependence in print (the publisher has lost count).

14 pages, Chapbook

First published July 4, 2009

About the author

John B. Burroughs of Cleveland served as the National Beat Poetry Foundation's 2022-2023 U.S. Beat Poet Laureate and 2019-2021 Ohio Beat Poet Laureate. He is the author of The Wrest of the Worthwhile: Unselected, Uncollected and New Poems, 1983-2023 (2023, Far Queue Press), Rattle and Numb: Selected Poems, 1992-2019 (2019, Venetian Spider Press), and more than a dozen poetry chapbooks including, most recently, Awash (2025, Pure Sleeze Press). Since 2024, he has been 2nd Vice President of the Ohio Poetry Association.

A dynamic performer who has wowed audiences from Oakland to New York City, Maine to New Mexico, and myriad points in between, John has hosted numerous poetry events in the Greater Cleveland area including the Poetry+ series at Art on Madison in Lakewood, Monday at Mahall's, PoetryElyria, and (with Dianne Borsenik) the Lix and Kix Poetry Extravaganza and Snoetry: A Winter Wordfest. He helps maintain the Cleveland Poetics blog and Northeast Ohio literary calendar at clevelandpoetry.com. Since 2008, has served as the founding editor for Crisis Chronicles Press, publishing over one hundred twenty books by esteemed writers from around the world. Find him at www.crisischronicles.com.

Older bio: John Burroughs, a.k.a. Jesus Crisis, is a nationally touring poet and performer, born in West Virginia, raised in Elyria, Ohio, and currently residing in Greater Cleveland. John is the author of Dogging Catastrophe (2022, The Grind Stone), You Can't Trust It to Remain (2022, Between Shadows Press), Loss and Foundering [NightBallet Press, 2018], The Eater of the Absurd [NightBallet Press, 2012], the collaborative book Oct Tongue -1 (with Mary Weems, John Swain, Steven Smith, Lady, Shelley Chernin and Steve Brightman) [2014, Crisis Chronicles Press]. and nearly a dozen chapbooks including Beat Attitude [NightBallet, 2015], It Takes More Than Chance to Make Change [The Poet's Haven, 2013], Water Works [Recycled Karma Press, 2012], Electric Company [Writing Knights Press, 2011] and, with Doug Manson and Bree, Identity Crises [Green Panda Press, 2009]. John has also published Cheap and Easy Magazine, Songs in the Key of Cleveland: An Anthology of the 2013 Best Cleveland Poem Competition, #ThisISCLE: An Anthology of the 2014 Best Cleveland Poem Competition, and the anti-censorship anthology Fuck Poetry.

John won his first poetry contest as a high school student in 1983. Around the turn of the millennium, John served as a playwright and occasional music director in residence for the Ministry of Theatre at Marion Correctional Institution. In 2007, his blog was ranked number 1 in several categories on MySpace when he abandoned it to create his own website. Subsequently, John won the first poetry slam he ever competed in; created PoetryElyria; formed Poets of Lorain County; has contributed irregularly to the Cleveland Poetics and Ohio Poetry Association blogs; served as the OPA's webmaster; has performed at bars, festivals, theaters, bookstores, libraries and galleries across the Midwest; and is perhaps most proud of his work (since 2008) as the founding editor of Crisis Chronicles Press.

Reviews

[Christina M. · Rating 5 out of 5]

John’s 3rd chapbook 6/9 is a collection of experimental pieces written and poems published during June of 2009. Thus the title...

It includes one of my favorite of his poems “ Karma Souptra” and 13 other selected pieces. One of which is a journal entry/essay sharing thoughts on being free for 5 yrs. after having served a prison sentence for 11 years for a crime he did not commit.

I think it says a lot about an artist to be willing to experiment. And be willing to share those experiments in public with others. As writers and poets we are often too self-critical to allow others to share our self-ruminations and leaps of faith.

Some of the poems are humorous. Most have a lighter tone than his two previous chapbook offerings. But the poems still have John’s trademark word play that flirts with language and teases the readers ear and tongue with thoughtful rhyme.

A collection of poems is to me, often, a reflection of an artist’s process at any given time. I liked the playful nature of the poems here and the willingness to try some new things and see where they might go.

Five years freedom seems to have finally set the creative wheels in motion. I’m eager to see where his poems will go next.

Highly recommended.

[John Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

John Burrough's "Improvisations in Dependence" is a powerful chapbook which is alternately light, heavy and hilarious. The central subject matter of the chapbook is, of course, no laughing matter: Burroughs spent exactly 11 years in prison for a crime he implores the reader to understand that he did not commit. This is not "The Fugitive" or anything romantic, and John drives that home as some of the more tortured pieces were written, quite literally, in the Belly of the Beast.

What I love the most about John's poetry is that, unlike so many other poets, he is not stiff, gloomy and lifeless: he has a real sense of humor and humility about being alive which is rare. Case in point: "Met a Mat, a Door I Didn't Like": "I'm a man/Who doesn't feel like much of one/Not a woman/Though I suppose I feel like most of them." This is open, accessible poetry, and at times reminded me of Allen Ginsberg. A must read for lovers of poetry, and those who get sick of the cryptic, Mallarme-esque approach to writing that makes so much inaccessible.