The Apostrophe Blog
My poem, “A Long Way Around,” has been accepted for publication in American Writers Review 2025, a publication of San Fedele Press. This year’s collection has the theme of “Buyer’s Remorse.” This poem is in a form called a golden shovel in which the last word of each line is made from the words of a pre-existing poem to which the poet is paying homage. This form was invented by Terrance Hayes whose 2010 poem, “The Golden Shovel,” is based on “We Real Cool” by Gwendolyn Brooks. Her poem begins with an epigraph that includes the phrase “golden shovel.” In Hayes’s original golden shovel, he was paying homage to Gwendolyn Brooks. My golden shovel is based on the poem, “Release,” by A.R. Ammons and it does, indeed, feature bees and pollinators.
Release
By A R Ammons
After a long
muggy
hanging
day
the raindrops
started so
sparse
the bumblebee flew
between
them home
I took the above photo of a bee on a dahlia flower near Greenbank on Whidbey Island, Washington on September 2, 2025. It was one of over 3000 blooms in DeeDee and Charlie’s dahlia beds just planted this past spring.
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.
- Publication News: Burn It Down! - October 20, 2025
- We Are All Frog… - October 19, 2025
- Greetings from War-Ravaged Portland! - October 5, 2025
