I Would Be the Purple

Originally from New York City, Phil Wexler spent his formative years in Brooklyn before moving, as a young man, to Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, DC. He has been writing poetry his entire adult life and has had over 180 poems published in literary magazines. His previous book-length poetry collections include The Sad Parade (prose poems) and The Burning Moustache, both from Adelaide Books, The Lesser Light (Finishing Line Press), and With Something Like Hope (Silver Bow Publishing). He has organized and emceed a number of spoken-word reading series over the years in the Washington, DC area. Most recently, Words out Loud has taken place over Zoom. Generally passionate about all the arts, Phil also works non-commercially in mosaics. After a long career of government service as a Technical Information Specialist, Phil retired from the Toxicology and Environmental Health Information Program of the National Library of Medicine, an arm of the National Institutes of Health, in 20