Tag Archives: poetry

Exciting news!

I was out of town recently, and while checking email from a super slow FedEx Office computer at 40 cents a minute (side note: I’ve vowed — again — that this is my last business trip without some type of smartphone or at least my very heavy laptop), I got a great surprise: A poetry collection that I edited over the summer has now been published.

Signal from Static, from Chromatopia, LLC, is available on Kindle or in paperback. I knew I would receive an editing credit, but I was really floored to see my name on the cover. How gratifying!

My own ego aside, I’m excited about this book because the poetry in it is so fresh and original. There are a lot of different styles and a range of subjects, but all the poems are united by the fact that they push boundaries and are vivid and emotionally honest. I truly enjoyed reading them, and I know you will, too.

The all-star lineup of poets includes several with whom I’ve since crossed paths during Open Link Night at dVerse Poets (aka, that thing I do each Tuesday, except for this most recent one — see the first paragraph of this post).

Chromatopia, LLC is one of many endeavors by the indefatigable Anna Montgomery, who is — among other things — both a poet and a visual artist herself. It was a joy to work with her and the individual poets in this collection, and I could not be more thrilled to see it come to fruition!

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And All the Air You Can Breathe

The morning titans stretch themselves,
release the earth again, on its own
recognizance. We recognize these things:
Leaves. Sun. Water. Each other’s faces.
How many mental maps do we have?
How many can we carry? This is
the riddle of every morning.
I solve it day by day.

 

 

To be linked tomorrow afternoon/evening for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. (I wrote and posted it now because I’ll be in Dallas tomorrow. Ever been there? Any tips?)

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Are You Writing a Book? Seeking Blog Hop Participants

Hello, friends, followers, likers, and lurkers …

The fabulous poet and blogger Jennifer Bullis, whom I “met” during last year’s NaPoWriMo, recently tagged me for a project called Blog Hop: The Next Big Thing. This is intended for those of us who have books we’re working on, shopping around, or getting ready to publish. It’s open to writers of poetry and prose, and chapbooks count — that’s what I’ll be highlighting in my own Next Big Thing post, on February 12.

In addition to answering a few interview questions, each participant is supposed to tag three to five writers to participate as well. That’s where you come in.

I know that many or most of you with whom I cross paths in the blogosphere, and especially through Open Link Night, are writers. What I don’t know is which of you have a book in the works. If that’s you, please let me know in the comments here.

Also, here’s a little “honor system” request: I believe the spirit of the exercise is that we’re calling attention to writers with whom we’ve had some interaction so that we’re saying, “Here are these great writers I know, and they’re going to tell you what they’re working on.” So I’d like to prioritize people with whom I’ve exchanged comments in the past — or at least, mutual “likes.”

I think everything should be pretty clear from Jennifer’s post (thanks again for tagging me, Jennifer!), but I can answer any questions you might have.

If I end up with more than five potential “taggees,” I’ll think of another way to highlight the writers I’m not able to include in this project.

OK … Tag — you’re it?

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Sofia Elena, Driver, Nissan Altima

My mother told me it is cold here.
I thought Ohio is near West Virginia
and West Virginia is near Virginia,
and this is in the south of the country.
But now there is snow. I have called
the woman at the real estate office,
the woman who showed me the
apartment in the fall. I have said
that I don’t know how to drive
in the snow, and also that I
do not have the clothes
for cold weather.

She has told me nothing,
this woman. I think that she
and I will not be friends. Her
voice says to me, Why did not
my husband get this job? Why
are you coming here? Her voice
laughs at me because of
these questions.

I think that this is not my fault,
that the company believes
an engineering degree is
necessary in order to
schedule the workers.
I have this degree.

If I am not coming here, I am
working at the dam in Brasil. 
My mother prefers that. It is
closer. She thinks that I will
fall in love, stay here, even
when eight months is over.

I do not see anything to love.
I know there is shale under the
snow, and gas inside the shale,
and money to keep me here
for eight months.

That is all.

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

 

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Shawna, Driver, Toyota Corolla

I’ve been thinking a lot about how everything is connected.
One time in geometry class, we had a sub who talked to us
about Fibonacci numbers, fractals. A lot of people were like,
whatever, but I took notes, looked it all up later, at home.
Sometimes I talk about it with Ben, on the way to and from
school. That’s one reason I rescued him from the bus—
because I knew he was someone I could talk to like that.
I know things about Ben that he doesn’t even know yet,
because he’s younger than me, but also because that’s
how I am. It’s not always so great, because I can’t
turn it off, and there are times when I would like to.
It would be nice to just go to the football game
like everyone else, you know? Not think so much.
Just be a kid, I guess. I don’t know what I am now;
I just turned 18, and a couple girls in my class have
babies already, and I swear, one of them has like
a 5-year-old. But do I feel like I could move out today,
get a job, be a real person yet? Probably not. It’s hard
to imagine being somewhere else next year, either
a couple of hours away or more like seven. We’ll see
how it all works out. My mom is still pushing hard for
Belmont Tech or OU-Zanesville, living at home, how
So-and-So found that they saved a ton of money,
it still felt like being at college, and then they didn’t
have all those loans. She and I both know that’s
not going to be me. I do think about Ben, what will
happen when I’m not here to give him rides, keep him
from getting picked on. But at least there’s Skype, or
we both got iPads for Christmas—still not sure how we
managed that—so now we have FaceTime, too. I think,
even though it’s not like we’ll ever get married or anything
(we don’t like each other like that), that Ben and I will
always be in touch somehow. It’s like how I’ve read that
in the ground, under all the rock and stuff, there are
secret rivers, and that’s where our water comes from.
We’re like that. Two secret rivers, side by side.

 

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. (Please sample some of the other fine poems, too.)

 

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Nancy, Driver, Toyota Avalon

I used to carry a paper bag
with me, to breathe into.
It’s true. I kept it right here
beside me, and I used it
at red lights, to keep
the panic down. I had

a whole system of
back roads and no
left turns, or at least
none without arrows.

I was hypnotized a few times,
laid out in a recliner, told that
my car was a sanctuary, a place
of great peace. I drifted along

on that idea, and then
went back to back roads
and paper bags. One day,

I got on this interstate, I-70,
by accident, merged onto it
while I was thinking about
something else. And that’s

what did it, I guess. No bag
since then, and I can pretty much
drive anywhere, make left turns
whenever I want. Sometimes

I imagine we’re all white blood cells,
platelets, I don’t know—something
in the blood—moved by a great

muscle, a heart I can’t see
but can feel. Shift into drive,
foot on the gas, breathe once,
drop into the bloodstream.

Go.

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

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Joan, Front Seat Passenger, Honda Civic

I don’t know why we have to go to Gratiot
to visit his mother. She doesn’t even know us
anymore—and when she did, she never liked
me, or even the children. It’s all about him.
Always. The number one son, quarterback,
love of her life, because Donny never
amounted to anything, left her—

after he died—in a broken house
clinging to a broken mountainside.
Everything here will collapse
sooner or later. That’s what will come
of all this fracking, though everyone
is so happy, now, to get that check.
Mineral rights. Trucks outside
the Super 8, new motels
going up every day.

New money. New everything,
where everything used to be

so old.

I can’t even see the trees anymore,
snow-covered and sheltering
horses, or cows, some
warm-blooded thing that
has no need to know
the score, no notion

of who’s winning
or what’s on the line.

 

For Open Link Night at dVerse Poets. 

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Watch This Space

This blog has existed for a little over a year now, and I’ve had so much fun with it — more than I ever imagined I would. I have “met” some truly great people, and I have been energized by the exchange of opinions, ideas, and support from people who love poetry — both writing it and (rarer still) reading it. As one year turns into the next, I thought I’d share with you my blogging plans for the next year:

  1. It has become painfully clear that I need a new theme. I say “painfully” because I love the aesthetic of this current one: the colors, the faint grid, the ’80s retro look, everything. But there are certain things that I can’t do with this theme, and now I would like to be able to do those things. Bonus points for any theme that will allow me to post poems with lines that are longer than usual. A month or so ago, I got really into poems with long lines, and the results were not pretty.
  2. Widgets. Facebook buttons. A blog roll. All that “stuff” that other bloggers have and that I can’t seem to figure out, so that this blog will be as connected and social as many others are, and so it will look nicer, too — not just a big text hole surrounded by broken things.
  3. Hey, did you know I’m an editor who is looking for freelance projects? And who has edited a few creative manuscripts (both poetry and prose), and would like to work on more of them — and is willing to do so at a very affordable rate? Well, how would you know? I have not done a great job of getting the word out — which was my primary purpose for this blog, before I discovered how much fun it is to just post poems. In the new year, I plan to make that information much easier to find. But I’ll make sure that art and commerce are separate enough that you don’t come for the poems and end up with a sales pitch (like a “free” visit to a time share community).

I am in over my head with a lot of this stuff, which is why I’ve hired an expert: Dan Kittay of Kittay New Media. (Some of you know that Dan works for me as a freelancer at my “actual job” — so I will hasten to say that he is charging me the same rate that he would any other client of my type, and that I cleared it with our general counsel first.) Yes, I know there’s a handy WordPress tutorial. It’s just that … sigh. Anyway, Dan says he can get things all straightened out and more functional for me and then show me how to maintain it.

Thank you so much for a great year, and please watch this space!

 

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