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Naked, powerful poetry and prose on heartbreak, love and sobriety - that’s what Jon Lupin, better known as @ThePoetryBandit to his almost 200k followers on Instagram, is all about. The sweetly humorous, Jon, rekindled his love of the creative arts after his ex wife bought a type writer and he began sharing writing in the early days of IG poets. He self published his first book, My Sober Little Moon, in 2014, and shared that he wrote much of it while still battling alcoholism. He said it reminds him and others why those chose sobriety. Jon is also staunchly honest about his particular kind of OCD that causes incessant overthinking, his divorce, his drunken stupors and even pokes fun of himself with how his IG handle used to be @thehopelessloser. In his opinion, poetry throughout the centuries will always have an air of suffering to it, as is the human condition. As such, we discuss how we become addicted to our suffering, how some only love us when we’re suffering, and we ruminate over the age old question, do you have to suffer to make great art? Jon even nerds out with me over the structural differences between prose and poetry that makes for a different psychological, emotional experience for the reader, which helps us answer the question, “Why do I love that poem?” Jon is also the author of You Only Love Me When I’m Suffering and Encyclopedia of a Broken Heart. This is an intelligent, honest, and surprisingly funny conversation that shouldn’t be missed! 
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Connect with Alyssa @alyssakuzins on Instagram.

For Jon’s books and show notes head to alyssakuzins.com/the-poetry-bandit 

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