Welbilt Spaceheater
DL Pravda
Welbilt Spaceheater, 26, passed away peacefully on January 19 after a long battle with electrocution. Brought into this world in a Deerborn, Michigan factory-hospital, Welbilt moved to Manassas, Virginia as an infant before being adopted by drummer Sweetroll Joey. When Sweetroll moved to Virginia Beach around 2000, Welbilt accompanied, adding warmth to foam-walled jam spaces and beercan bedrooms. Sweetroll gave Welbilt away to Frontman Dan in 2010. With only 1500 watts, Welbilt battled Frontman’s bitchy boiler and leaky pipes, often to a draw. Welbilt enjoyed sharing heat with Norfolk visitors to Club 1055 and had many warm relationships with poets, punk rockers, and their pets. Welbilt earned her trademark dented shoulder from a mosh pit in 2013. Spaceheater was gently dropped into a blue city recycling coffin and wheeled to the street on Tuesday morning, leaving behind no children due to the corporate move to kitchen appliances. In lieu of flowers, Sweetroll and Frontman request donations for cold bands of bad bourbon or the blackest of Scottish tea.
DL Pravda tries to keep it together either by jamming distorted reverb juice in his ears or by driving to the country and disappearing into the woodsfarm dimension. Author of the award-winning book Normal They Napalm the Cottonfields, Pravda appeared on the Library of Congress podcast The Poet and the Poem with Maryland laureate Grace Cavalieri in 2023. Recent poems appear in Blue Mountain Review, Mantis, Roanoke Review, and Sand Hills Literary Review. Pravda teaches at HBCU Norfolk State University.
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