Humanity exists in a hyper connected world, where our closest friends, loves and enemies lie but a keyboard stroke away. Few know this better than the poets who have risen to the top of their trade by sharing their emotion, opinion and art with millions of fans.Combining the poetic forces of some of today's most popular and confessional poets, this book presents poems and short stories about connection wrapped up in a most unique exercise in creative writing. Follow along as your favorite poets connect with each other; offering their poetry to the next poet who tells a story based on the concept presented to them. With contributions from Amanda Lovelace, Nikita Gill, Iain S. Thomas, Trista Mateer, Cyrus Parker, RH Swaney, Liam Ryan, Yena Sharma Purmasir, Canisia Lubrin, and Sara Bond. The idea for this book came to me when someone said they heard poetry was the next adult colouring book, referring to the craze of the early/mid 2010s. Like other fads, the market for these books exploded, and then promptly tanked.Is poetry the next fad? For anyone in the know, it isn't. While poetry has seen a surge in sales in recent years, its popularity has been building slowly and sustainably over several years. After all, I successfully published I Wrote This For You by Iain S. Thomas in 2011 and there were several poets who achieved more widespread popularity around that time. Many young contemporary poets are gaining voices via social media and while increases may not continue at the same rate, there is enough organic momentum to sustain a new normal of higher sales in this bigger category.Social-media poetry is simply an evolution of the art form. The sharing and acceptance of online poetry is not much different than what happened with the Impressionists and the Beat Generation, who were initially eschewed by their critics. Poetry is bringing together people from all over the world, of different races, religions, identities. Well-known and new poets are having their voices heard via social media and indie- and self-publishing. These people are changing the status quo and creating a form of art that is accessible, loud, beautiful, and soft--all at the same time.This book brings together some of the most popular talents in many forms of poetry and uses their voices to raise those of not-yet-known poets. It is an exercise for all the poets to use their counterparts' work to create fiction in the form of short stories. And it's a chance for poetry fans to read longer work and see their favorite poets' talents all in one book.What you're about to read is the product of ten diverse and interesting people coming together. The concept and theme of the book are about connection. We seem to live in a hyper-connected world, yet we increasingly hear stories of loneliness and isolation. This book is about connecting poets with each other, connecting poetry with short fiction, and publishing stories about connection and/or a lack thereof. Michelle Halket is a bibliophile and technophile who loves to try new things, which is what prompted her to start a digital-first publishing company when very few people knew what ebooks were. By bringing together some of the most popular contemporary poets, Michelle Halket has created a compilation in  [Dis]Connected  which exemplifies the reasons behind the popularity of poetry and short fiction. Michelle is the managing editor and publisher of Central Avenue Publishing, based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Find Michelle @centavepub and centralavenuepublishing.com Disconnected Poems and Stories of Connection and Otherwise By Michelle Halket Central Avenue Marketing Ltd. Copyright © 2018 Central Avenue Marketing All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-77168-145-2 CHAPTER 1 The Exercise [POEMS THAT WERE CHOSEN] That Instrument of Laughter CANISIA LUBRIN Nowadays I like to say cool cool cool thrashing my tongue like iguana Before even a lil wind ruffle my branch Because that was the dark, that was the dark between my lips, saying nothing beyond the resolute So I forlorn, cool? Wherever you happen to be Remember the gaped moon, tilt its forehead on the bay And permits the sun, erasure Here is where the chronicle of a small life turned upside down, toward a heavy murmur lets me make the place of my birth a fiction Kanata when I really mean Roseau Or calm, when the heavy hand really rests there, casting its figure into flesh and heart I learned to be like the mute, but how to unlearn contentment with silence, within or without that sorrow, never the same as the night though together they share the same start Here is where to picture the years of seven and eleven means unlearning the multiplication tables that I could only use in a black suit they were many, they were few So I traded my calculator for a pencil, cool? drew icing all over the sky filled black gutters on white sheets with fathers like lime losing seed all over de yard & wished for