Weird Voyage Loveward

Please view this book as a sort of story, which begins in the author's senior year of college in Ashland, Oregon, USA, carries him to a corporate job in a big city skyscraper, then off to the tropical heat of rural Thailand where monkeys fetch coconuts and water buffalo plough the fields, where the children of rice farmers explore the world wide web, and where the descendants of war elephants take "1st world" tourists on jungle treks. Then, poisoned by arsenic from polluting gold-mining practices, Sean returns to America half-crippled and psychologically damaged. Thus he comes to spend time among the mentally ill in hospitals full of terrible noises and wonderful humanity, as well as in mental health homes where capable human beings are ware-housed like animals. Throughout all this, Sean continues to seek enlightenment through interaction with remarkable humans, through scholarship, through music, and through the oft futile use of mind-altering substances. From "Gratitude to Gaiia" to "!!No More Gods!!" to "An Ode to Terror" to "Zerse from Portland State Zuniversity," Nelson's poems, essays, and short stories are a unique perspective on this over-modernized or as he terms it: "cyborg" world. The style ranges from quirky humor to angry, revolutionary politics but every piece is written with inspiration and artistry. "Weird Voyage Loveward" will thrill you, depress you, but above all leave you with a little more "gan-luke-jan," (Thai for enlightenment.)