by Steven Kent
“Heterosexual, sober men who marry girls and read Bibles, we’re the new punk rock!” the pastor Mark Driscoll [at Freedom Con] said in a fiery sermon that brought attendees to their feet. —The New York Times, June 26, 2026
"When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less" —Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass
The Freedom Con is aptly named—it's bunk.
Until you've seen your options madly shrunk
And found yourself in nihilism sunk,
With friends and lovers hooked (or dead) on junk,
You cannot rightly call yourself a punk.
Steven Kent is the poetic alter ego of writer and musician Kent Burnside. His work appears in 251, Asses of Parnassus, The Dirigible Balloon, Light, Lighten Up Online, The Lyric, New Verse News, The Orchards Poetry Journal, Philosophy Now, The Pierian, Pulsebeat Poetry Journal, The Road Not Taken: A Journal of Formal Poetry, Snakeskin, and Well Read. His collections I Tried (And Other Poems, Too) (2023) and Home at Last (2025) are published by Kelsay Books.