Latest News
Jeff Davis, March 31, 1981 - October 30, 2025
in the end it’s easier to think about yourself than to think about Dignan
you died again today, for the second time in three months, & i cried on my drive to work cause your last moments came into focus this morning like a fog lifting over the river slowly revealing a bridge & a way to the other side & the possibility of moving forward, but i took a step back today, not ready for the journey ahead, not willing to let go of your melancholy & solitary end & fuck that priest who barely knew your name & offered promises of you in a better place, beyond the pain you carried for so long in your chest like the burden of righteousness foisted upon us all when we were just impressionable kids & there was no one
to catch us when we fell off that cliff so we navigated a new way to see the world the best we could through the haze of too many drunken nights & forgotten mornings & the things you snorted up your nose when the red wine couldn’t be the balm you needed to heal from the knife our chosen father figures shoved between our shoulder blades as some kind of promise of salvation but what they didn’t tell us is that we never needed saving from ourselves & i refuse to pray & recite scripture cause i won’t honor you that way & fuck, i wish i’d done more for you at the end & i don’t think i’ll ever get over the texts i ignored or the
helplessness i felt trying to navigate your drug-fueled ramblings & the thoughts in your mind that might as well have been a made up language because i couldn’t, or maybe wouldn’t, let myself fully see your life through your own eyes—it’s easier to turn towards the leaves moving through their natural cycle of brilliant colors in the portland autumn than look again at the concrete prairies of a city i left a decade ago so i could find a way to stay alive & through tears, scott reminded me how strong you were to daily carry your shame for as long as you could & i know & don’t know that burden too well cause my shame is that i
was here & not there & used an easily passable distance as an excuse to look the other way while the scars of your hurt flashed through my phone screen & fuck, i’d take you strung out & homeless today if it meant i could hear you laugh one more time cause i need people to know you were better than your end & even if it’s just me & scott sharing your story & planting your memories in the rich northwest soil so we can return to them like the rhododendrons every spring, i hope that will be enough for me to keep moving forward & eventually cross that bridge but right now i’m just fucking broken because you died again
today, for the second time in three months
Event - Poetry Reading & Conversation
BOLD Coffee & Books is thrilled to host a reading and book release with Scott Cannon, author of The Newel Post, Book One: Nonrepresentational Card Panels, in conversation with Adam Oyster-Sands, author of don't call us punk because we hate that.
Scott Cannon has been making abstract art for more than 20 years. His first book is a selection of abstract card panels made between 2022-2025. The work is deeper than just the art though. It's family and connection, daily practice, an honest journaling without words. Join us for a conversation with the artist, a presentation, and limited edition prints available only at the event (free with any book purchase at BOLD while they last).
Scott Cannon lives with his partner and daughter in the evergreen city of Portland, OR. He draws, paints, does woodworking, plays piano, writes short fiction and poetry, and publishes whatever he feels like with his friends.
Adam Oyster-Sands is a high school ELA teacher and poet. His first chapbook, don’t call us punk because we hate that, was released in 2024 by Steel Toe Books. Adam can often be found with his partner Morgan running through forests or walking their dogs around their neighborhood in Portland, Oregon.
Arrive at 6:30 p.m. to grab a snack or drink. The event will start at 7:00 p.m.
January 31, 2026 - Bold Coffee & Books - 1755 SW Jefferson St, Portland, OR
don't call us punk because we hate that
Poetry Chapbook - Steel Toe Books, 2024
Memory and myth. Cigarettes and summer nights. Worship songs and circle pits. don’t call us punk because we hate that traverses the backroads of America’s suburbia in the days before smartphones and AirPods at the very time of life when the aimless youth are waking up to their disillusionment at the world their parents were planting for them. These starkly direct poems speak to the human need for authentic community and escape before they drown in middle-class expectations. The characters, places, and times are pulled from a lived experience and expanded into a universal narrative around the search for something sustainable and true. Adam Oyster-Sands has written a love letter to punk and to those who wove in and out of the various shows, record shops, skate spots, and fast-food joints of his formative years. Whether you’ve spent a Saturday night in a circle pit and Sunday morning in a church pew or not, don’t call us punk because we hate that speaks to anyone who, at the exact right time, found their people in the unexpected places beyond the boundaries of a world passed to them through the stories they inherit.
“Is this memory or myth?” Set in the sweltering, stifling suburbs of Dallas, TX in the 1990s, somewhere between nostalgia and regret, full of grace and longing, sits don’t call us punk because we hate that. Oyster-Sands takes us deep into his memories of growing up, of discovering a music scene that would change him forever, to meet the people that have come and gone in his life, and explore how the slow accrual of years can give us perspective on the unsolvable question of what it all means.
-Scott Cannon, Picture Frame Press
don’t call us punk because we hate that is both sparsely direct and metaphoric as the poems pull you into specific people, places, and times that very well could be your own. Like the best punk bangers do, these poems make the personal universal.
-Book Blurb