And Aosaginohi, Luminescent Heron of the Night

Aka Manto, I do not wish the blue paper or the red —
no paper for me, thanks. I’ll squat and drip dry,
and thus be neither strangled nor sliced.

Akaname, you are welcome to come and lick my
bathroom clean. I’ll think of you like a house centipede;
we’ll agree to unsee each other as we make our living.

Azukiarai, what is the sound of your azuki beans
being washed? I imagine it as shook shook shook.

Abura-akago, I’m afraid we don’t have the right
kind of lamps for you. Your infant tongue might burn
on the coils of our lightbulbs, and still not find any oil.

Ameonna, do you sometimes make rain for Amefurikozo
to play in? I would do this for any little boy, if I were you.

For NaPoWriMo, Day 2. I wrote based on this list of creatures from Japanese legend. I regret that I couldn’t give the little boy in my last stanza the long accent over his final “o.” I’m still figuring out this new blog theme.

Only the Sound

I used to be mystified by whale-shaped volcanoes.

Now, I know it’s all just so much razzle-dazzle,

a certain belching of acid or fire, a little rumble

shaking us up toward our only glimpse of sky.

Sometimes I think our whale volcano might be

on a birthday cake, white frosting under our feet

if only we could dig far enough. If only we had

any inclination, or enough shovels. Sometimes

I think we’re all alone, and there’s no such thing

as birthdays. Only saltwater. Only lava. Only

the sound of our own breath, repeating.

NaPoWriMo 2014 is Almost Here!

April brings NaPoWriMo, or as I call it, the month when I throw 30 poems down a well.

Actually, the truth is a little more nuanced than that: I’ve found that it’s possible to get poems published even if they’ve appeared on your blog … IF you first check the guidelines for any statement to the contrary and IF you divulge this sort-of previous publication when you submit. (Editors don’t like surprises.)

Anyway … Starting on April 1, you’ll find a new poem here each day, based on the prompts at the link above. If you’re doing NaPoWriMo, too, please let me know in the comments here, and I’ll make sure to include you on my circuit of blog visits.

And if you are a poetry appreciator but don’t consider yourself to be a poet, I highly recommend NaPoWriMo as a way to try your hand at it. The prompts are challenging but approachable. And while you don’t have to blog your results, if you do take that risk, I bet you’ll find that people are supportive. April seems like a time to try something new, doesn’t it?

See you next month — allllll month long.

Home to Roost

Never a twilight kitchen curtain closes—
apple gingham blocking apple tree,
roosting swifts, twittering in aggregate—
as never inside a silence falls, bereft of
any comfort. Never think that these
evenings will be embroidered on towels,
suspended in amber, frozen in memory.
Time has curtains of its own, divides us
from seeing each other, the drift of clouds
scudding treetops, until it is too late.
Listen: All our dead mothers call all our
dead selves from all our dead doorsteps
at all our dead back doors.

Luncheon

Now I am a sandwich loaf
frosted in cream cheese,
with mushrooms and small
tiles of ham. Now I am the
ham, or else I’m still the pig,
caged and oblivious. Now
I am a duck among thousands
starving on the lake ice, or
one of hundreds fishing
in the river water. Now I
am the fish, swimming in
the river or lying on a platter,
a new face drawn over my
old face, in cream cheese
or mayonnaise. Now I am
lighting the candles. Now I
wait for my guests. I will
serve them what I have,
what I was, what I am.

Leave It a Lost Soul Making Something

Writ large on the side of an underpass was this message:
Ham aspic never solved anyone’s problems. Which, if you
really come right down to it, I guess it never has. Still, that’s
quite a thing to read on a Sunday morning, when you’re out
for a drive and minding your own sunny and blameless business.
Who would bother to write that? And what about perfection
salad? Has it ever rendered the world any more perfect?
Somewhere, there is a masked lover of everything gelatinous.
Somewhere, he raises his forearms over his plate, like a
mantis, thinks, “Everything I love only causes grief.”

It Will Be a Sea Change

Old rockers don’t like eating dinner at 4 in the afternoon.
They know at least a hundred cool ways to die.

Old rockers wrinkle in ways that are bad-ass.
They flash devil horns at the retirement home staff.

Old rockers trick out their motorized scooters.
They never go to bingo night without something in a flask.

Old rockers stare out of smoked-glass windows.
They like to watch the young punks pass them by.

Ripe Plums Indeed

Slept late again.
I guess they only go to sleep
if they are out in the cold.
Oh, I couldn’t sleep again!

My mind kept racing along
at fever-pitch; she said I didn’t have
the courage of my convictions.
Gisela likes to talk and tell secrets
and give counsels.

Couldn’t sleep—lurid dreams.
Had insomnia again!
Slept a long time.

There was a far-off gleam in her eye;
I could have shot him in the head.
That killed the day for me.

But there were cocktails, of course,
a long, fascinated conversation—
I felt dreamy.

This is a rather dizzying account
of the creation of the universe.
It’s an awfully good story,

and one expects momentarily
to be pelted by raindrops
as big as ripe plums.

If it’s Tuesday p.m., check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

Big News: My First Chapbook Comes out This Summer

You might recall that from time to time over the past year or so, I’ve mentioned that I was having trouble cracking the chapbook nut. Last winter, I put together a manuscript that I really liked, and I kept entering it in various contests, and it kept getting turned down.

One evening in January of this year, I got a phone call. I expected it would be yet another robocall from my kids’ school about an emergency closing due to excessive cold. So I was only half-listening when Gordon Grigsby from Evening Street Press started leaving a message. Wait … what? This is not how rejections usually arrive. I’ve received plenty of rejections in plenty of ways — but never a rejection phone call. So …?

I leaped up, picked up the phone … and accidentally hung up on Gordon. Fortunately, he called right back — with news that my chapbook, Secret Rivers, was the 2013 winner of the Evening Street Press Helen Kay Chapbook Prize.

The funny thing is, I had just reached a point where I was starting to reevaluate my approach with Secret Rivers. Instead of entering it in contests, should I just focus on trying to find a good publisher for it, even without a prize? I believe I vented about this both here and on Facebook — and I know that a couple of blogger friends said they felt like this would be my year, and a few Facebook friends offered encouragement, one of them saying she had her fingers crossed. And that’s when I got that call.

I waited a while to announce it here because I knew Evening Street Press had plans to announce it as well, and I didn’t want to step on those plans or catch any other entrants by surprise. But now they’ve announced it on their Facebook page and in an ad in the current issue of Poets & Writers, so I’m in the clear.

Seven of the poems will be in the upcoming spring issue of Evening Street Press Review, and the chapbook will be published sometime over the summer (I’ll keep you posted on that). I’m now lining up back-cover blurbs, considering whether I want to thank anyone (how do you choose?), trying to think of a good image for the cover, and steeling myself to have an author photo taken (my best photos are are all cellphone selfies). It’s all really exciting work, and I can’t believe this is happening.

Evening Street Press is such a great fit for Secret Rivers, for a number of reasons. First, it is known not only for its high-quality work and the great care with which it showcases it, but also for its focus on equal rights and social justice, and on spotlighting current barriers to those. When I started writing Secret Rivers, I didn’t intend for it to be a political piece, but the issue of fracking found its way in and then would not be denied.

Another thing I find really satisfying is the “home” connection. I live in Chicago, but I went to high school in a suburb of Columbus, and my dad still lives there. In back-and-forth during the submission process, it came out that Gordon and his wife (and managing editor) Barbara Bergmann live just up the road from my dad. I’ve probably driven right past their house.

Also, Secret Rivers is set in a lightly fictionalized version of Belmont County, Ohio, where fracking is now a huge issue of concern or opportunity — depending on whom you ask. Don’t get me wrong: Evening Street Press is limitless in its geographic scope. In fact, its 2012 Helen Kay prize went to Lynn Veach Sadler’s Mola … Person, which incorporates the anthropology and history of the San Blas islands off Colombia and Panama. Still, I find it so pleasing that my Ohio chapbook ended up coming home to Ohio to be published.

To Evening Street Press, and to anyone who has shared words of encouragement as Secret Rivers struggled to find its home: Thank you! And for anyone else who is trying to place a chapbook and is hanging in there despite rejections: I’m keeping my fingers crossed, and may this be your year, too.

Doing the Dishes

Doing dishes that are made from earth
managing not to return them to earth
managing not to break

everything
oh, everything

There is a certain line holding me
there is a certain thread holding me
there is a plumb line holding me

and it could snap
in rotten teeth

Everything is tired in the snow
there is thunder in the snow
you are out there, in the snow

and here I sit—
I lied about doing the dishes