My yet-unpublished prose poem, “Thresholds of More Oblivious Blossoming,” has received the First Honorable Mention in the Form/Prose Poem Category of the Oregon Poetry Association’s Fall 2024 Contest. The category judge, Rana Tahir, wrote…
Playing with Form: The Abecedarian
In Summer 2018, riverbabble published my poem, “First Line of Defense: A Cento.” Not only does this poem use the cento form, stitching together lines borrowed from other poets into a poem all its own, but it is also an (almost) abecedarian. An abecedarian is a poem in which the first letter of each line or stanza follows sequentially through the alphabet…
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Publication News: “Remembering Gravity”
Here is another one of my old chestnuts I Publication News: “Remembering Gravity”
Here is another one of my old chestnuts, as I call them—ditties I wrote when I was just taking up the pen and paper again almost twenty years ago and trying to re-learn what makes a good poem. Looking at these oldies but goodies again now, in 2024, I can see I would write them very differently now!
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When the art monster turns out to be someone beloved…
Sometimes the secrets we keep in life we are able to quietly take to the grave. Other times there are secrets—perhaps buried, elided, squelched, ignored, dismissed, and discounted for decades—bubble back up to the surface, break through, causing a seismic wave especially when the secret-keeper is both beloved and well-known
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A Group Poem at Tupelo Press
Several years back, the good folks at Tupleo Press came up with the idea for The Million-Line Poem. Poets would submit two lines—a couplet—and the world would see what a collaborative poetic effort could and would became. My two lines were from a poem I wrote long ago about The Combat Paper Project, which per Wikipedia, was“formed to help veterans cope with experiences in the war…
Publication News: Margie, the Journal of American Poetry
My poem, “The Weight of Too Much,” was published in Margie: The American Journal of Poetry in Fall 2006—one of my first poetry publication successes! Margie is an annual literary journal based in Chesterfield, Missouri that features the work of the nation’s leading poets. It journal was established in 2000; it is named after and dedicated to the memory of Marjorie J. Wilson (1955-1977). …
There are very few books whose titles begin with the letter X…
A while back, when I was putting together my abecedarian book-title manuscript, Miss Scarlet in the Library with a Rope, I struggled to find a book I’d read whose title began with the letter X. Then I searched for any book, figuring I could then read it. Nada
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A fun alternative to the traditional author bio…
Fence Magazine has accepted two of my poems for publication in Winter 2024. They eschew those (often boring, too often bragging) boilerplate author bios in favor of something entirely different and fun. Each author accepted for publication must submit a statement about what you have been reading recently and maybe a bit about why…
Acceptance News: Gumball Poetry
My poem, “Gift Event for Our New Gilded Age” has been accepted for Fall 2024 publication by Gumball Poetry. Per the website, Gumball Poetry is a “single micro-journal in a capsule machine.” After over a decade offering poems published in various venues across the U.S. and on the web…
Not Dark Yet…
It’s nearly nine p.m., a July summer night. I’m sitting out in our garden on one of the new chairs that go with the new table where four can comfortably sit, even eat—en plein air entertaining finally and at long last. It’s actually quite nice to have a large enough table. I put hydrangea in a vase in the center and even with my sunset clutter—telephone, two magazines, a glass of white wine—there’s still plenty of room to breathe. Even my pink and orange oilcloth from Corvallis days fits. Maybe this will become my new summer writing room. Especially this time of day when the sun is nearly down and there’s no glare on the iBook screen
