The Apostrophe Blog
Two of my poems “A Baffling Earth” and “It Ends, It Begins: A Cento” are now online in the lovely September 2025 edition of the literary magazine, Halfway Down the Stairs. The theme of this issue is “Muse” in honor of their twentieth anniversary. In modern usage, a muse is a person who serves as a source of artistic inspiration. Recently, I did a number of poems that are “in conversation” with Emily Dickinson and her work; I guess that makes her my 21st century muse. And the cento form itself is a bit of collage/homage to the voices of other poets who inspired me as well.
As their editors note on in this edition: “This issue marks 20 years of Halfway Down the Stairs! That’s 1,375 pieces published, drawn from 8,180 submissions, over 72 issues, with over 100,000 readers. The whole thing has been done on a shoestring, so how did we get started, and how have we continued so long? Our first issue was published on September 1, 2005, and was themed ‘Enchanté’. The editorial team wrote everything in it, and we went from there. People started reading our work, and slowly, we started to receive submissions. From that early start, we’ve grown and grown – for example, from only six submissions in March 2006, to around 1000 submissions a year. In 2019, we moved onto WordPress, and our statistics show we’ve grown from a readership of around 6500 at that point, to over 40,000 per annum more recently.” I have been one of the lucky poets to be published several times in this wonderful journal.
The public domain image above, “Minerva and the Nine Muses,” was painted by Hendrick van Balen the Elder in the first half of 17th century. The number of Muses was standardized to nine in the Classical Period of Greece with the following names: Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania.
Interests: Reading, writing, not arithmetic. The art and craft of poetry. Photography. Vegetable and flower gardening especially heirloom bulbs and dahlias. Movies in real theatres. Theatre on real stages. Art in real galleries. Crossword puzzles and, of course, Wordle. Singer-songwriters like Aimee Mann and Patti Griffin. All kinds of music especially 1930s jazz. Venice, Italy! The Dude abides.
- Greetings from War-Ravaged Portland! - October 5, 2025
- Publication Day: America’s Slide Towards Authoritarianism from IHRAM Press - October 1, 2025
- Autumnal Equinox & the Diminishing Hours of Light… - September 26, 2025
