Howard Camner is the author of 15 books of poetry and 
is widely published throughout the United States and Great Britain. 
He represents the U.S. in the Poet 2000 Sculpted Library, an international exhibition of 
the works of contemporary poets housed in Dublin.

His works are in the 100 most prominent literary collections in the world,including ten historical archives 
and six royal libraries. He was nominated for Poet Laureate of Florida in 1980, and has the distinction of 
having been the youngest poet nominated for a state laureateship. During his years in New York, 
Camner was the featured performer with the West End Poetry Troupe,an offshoot of Kerouac's beat poets, 
headquartered at the famed West End Jazz Club. 

Camner often performed in clown makeup backed by members of Duke Ellington's orchestra known as 
"Ellintonia". Camner's stage persona became as well known as his poetry,described in Broadway 
Magazine as "a bittersweet Chaplinesque street character with a lot on his mind". 
With over 1500 published poems, Camner is recognized as Florida's most widely published poet. 
He represents the United States in the Poet 2000 Sculpted Library, an international exhibition of the 
works of contemporary poets. 

He received the Library of Congress Award for his contribution to U.S. cultural arts in 1993 and the 
first annual MiPo Literary Award in 2004.
 
In other ventures, Camner's original feature film screenplay "Duck, Duck, Goose" has been placed in the 
archives of the Motion Pictures Academy of Arts and Sciences in Los Angeles, and the comedy television 
talk show he created and hosted in the 1980s, "Life is a Four Letter Word" was placed in the UCLA Film 
and Television Archives in 1999. Camner resides in Miami with his wife, daughter, and son. 


 

POLITICAL PULL
 
Grab it and yank it
like it's a staunch Republican
who's so mad he could spit
 
 
DEVIL'S DUE
 
You can play it right
You can play it wrong
You can play dumb
You can play it smart
You can play it on any corner
of any box
You can play on any surface
on any shore
You can dress up or dress down
You can go high
You can go low
You can glitz and glitter all you want
You can reach for any instrument
that calls your name
You can think that when you open your mouth
a choir of angels sings
But the truth is, your lines are down,
your time is up,
and Old Scratch will always have the best song
 
 
THE LONG DRIVE HOME FROM THERE
 
Sometimes
leaving you
I like to drive with my mouth opened
 
so I can swallow the road
 
 
 
THE EXTREMELY ECSTATIC ETHEL EEK
 
Ethel Eek
walks around
telling everyone
she's happy as a clam
 
For the most part
that may be true
 
but at low tide
the real truth comes out
when her breeding grounds are exposed