“Houseplant Love” to Appear in Icelandic Journal!

I am grateful to Editor Lillian Heimisdottir for accepting my poem, “Houseplant Love,” for the May issue of The Mantelpiece! This will be my first Icelandic publication, and it pays professional rates without charging a fee to submit. It also got back to me in about two weeks.

The Mantelpiece is a glossy-looking online magazine. Based on my cursory look-throughs, I would say it mixes poetry and fiction with articles on the environment, Icelandic attractions of all kinds, and issues affecting quality of life, such as advances in technology. Based on my more careful reading of some of the poetry, it seems to be a mix of smart, quirky pieces (the category I think “Houseplant Love” falls into) and pieces more straightforwardly celebrating nature, particularly Icelandic nature.

I haven’t read any of the fiction yet, but I do plan to. I will also say more about “Houseplant Love” when it is published, which is projected to be May 1. For now, I will just say that my college, Oberlin, gave out a prompt, “Write a poem on how you would like to be loved,” and I ran with it. Also, if you are a poet with a smart, quirky, and / or nature-centered poem or two lying around, this was an exceptionally pleasant and rewarding submission experience. Thanks again, Mantelpiece poetry staff!


Photo credit: Wikipedia Loves Art participant, Louis (of Healy and Millet) Millet, George Washington Maher (United States, Illinois (Chicago), 1864 – 1926); Fireplace Surround from the Patrick J. King House, Chicago, Illinois, 1901. Taken, Feb. 2009. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 2.5 DEED. Size altered by me.

“Cranes” to Appear in June Edition of ABZ; Grand Canyon Poems to Be Anthologized

Picture of cranes in Atlanta. Taken by me on 20 April, 2023.

Thanks to Red Focks, Editor of Alien Buddha Press, who has accepted my poem, “Cranes,” inspired by the view above, for the June issue of Alien Buddha Zine. The cranes seem so sure of themselves. But I had recently had a kind of dream / vision of a black elevator, seen from above, traveling way too fast down the shaft, and that seemed to symbolize forces opposing the cranes’ confidence. Looking at the them and thinking of the elevator vision, I saw a metaphor for our technologically advanced culture teetering on the precipice of apocalyptic destruction. And so, a poem was born.

At the time, I was walking the Beltline in Atlanta to pass the time while my bow was being rehaired. The Beltline has all sorts of magical art, and a few minutes after I observed the cranes, I came on an ornately carved and painted bench with a tiny red door in it. This is part of aproject called Tiny Doors Atlanta. It is an enchanting piece, so of course it had to be part of the poem, too–neither over-confident cranes nor elevator disaster, but a passage, perhaps to a third way.

A tiny door in an ornate bench on the Beltline in Atlanta. Taken by me, 20 April 2023.

In other news, I am honored that David L O’Nan at Fevers of the Mind, plans to anthologize my “Three Poems About the Grand Canyon,” which I wrote about here. I encourage you to look into what David O’Nan and Red Focks are doing with their respective literary enterprises. There is a lot of interesting work besides mine in their publications. Happy reading!

Grand Canyon. Taken by Me. Dec. 2021.

“VIOLIN” and “When I Retire” Are Up at JAKE

Violin keyring, with keys. Taken by me.

While I was in Chicago last week, JAKE, which I wrote about here, published my poems, VIOLIN and When I Retire. Thanks again to Poetry Editor Heather Ann F. Pullido and everyone else involved in getting these out into the world via JAKE.

“VIOLIN” is an acrostic poem that expresses my frustration at my limited musical abilities. I would like to have said more, but as my opening line, “Violin is like Fight Club,” implies, it is hard for me to talk about violin, let alone write poems about it. I would like to be able to write a brilliant evocation of what it feels like to be just good enough to turn out something really beautiful once in a while but not good enough to do it consistently, but when I came to write the poem, I condensed instead of elaborating. Who am I to annoy people with my privileged, first-world problems? Not to mention, the full tale, which is all wrapped up with my family drama, requires a novel. Finally, as I believe I imply in the poem, examining the subject is almost as painful for me as failing to execute up to my standards on the violin. At least I put something about it out there. I don’t hate the work.

The other poem, “When I Retire,” is an anxiety daydream. On the one hand, leaving the South and having the freedom to spend my days however I like and enjoy life with my husband in retirement all seem like good things, but whether because of Puritan guilt, impostor syndrome, or knowledge of my true shortcomings, I am afraid that I will not make the best use of all these gifts and end up shallow, alienated, and lost. I am very happily looking forward to retirement with my controlled and controlling frontal cortex, but when I let that go, the lurking doubts come to light. I credit this self-satirizing poem to them.

Likewise, I am happy to see these poems up in Jake, but I’m not sure I’ve conveyed that with all this depressing gloom. By all means, check out the other work in Jake as well. It is clever and concise and high energy.

Robotic Ekphrasis Up at Active Muse

Uberprutser, Narcissus flowers. 14 April 2013. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA DEED. Size and resolution altered.

Grateful to the editors at Active Muse for publishing my poem, A Robot Brings Flowers. This poem began as a response to Rattle‘s Ekphrastic Challenge. Active Muse doesn’t have the attribution, and the poem stands alone anyway, but it is an ekphrasis of Carla Paton’s painting, Yellow Flowers.

Yellow Flowers shows a robot holding a bouquet of yellow flowers. The robot’s face is expressive in a way that is at once hollow and mysterious and oddly vulnerable. He appears to be offering the flowers to the viewer.

My poem is a prose poem about the robot and his relationship to the person he is offering flowers to. I used AI to voice the robot because I wanted to get a robot’s point of view from a robot. I was open about attributing the answer to my question, “What would a robot say when bringing flowers to a first date?” to ChatGPT. I know a lot of magazines prohibit AI in their guidelines, but I wanted my poem to be, in part, a commentary on our interaction with the technology–the ways we anthropomorphize it, the ways it mimics humanity. Still, at first I didn’t know what to do with the flat, clichéd material AI gave me. Only when I started to think about all the ways the robot might fail in its quest for a first date, and what kind of person might feel sympathy for it, did a prose poem response fall into place.

When Rattle didn’t accept the poem, I don’t think it was because of any strictures against my use of AI, which the guidelines do not absolutely prohibit. But even though Rattle chose two other, very good, ekphrastic poems, I wanted mine to get out and about in the world, too. Many thanks to Poetry Editor Chaitali Gawada and Managing Editor Shashi Kadapa for seeing value in this meeting and blending of technology and humanity. Please go check out Active Muse, which has an eclectic and adventurous aesthetic.

Valentine’s Senryu Up at Haikuniverse

Heart window display on Valentine’s Day. Opelika, AL. Taken by me. Reminds me of Hopper.

Last week, while I was rehearsing Beethoven’s 5th, I saw a call for submissions from Haikuniverse. From midnight of Feb. 14th to midnight of Feb. 15th, they posted one micro poem (they are loose about the definition of haiku) per hour. When I saw the call, I thought, “Surely I can come up with a few little lines involving love without too much trouble.”

I kind of wanted to write a real haiku, where the love emerged naturally from natural images, and a season was implied, but the deadline was already looming, as was the symphony performance, so when the idea of early spring (the season we are in down here, and a season associated with love) led to daisies, which led to “he loves me, he loves me not,” I went with those ideas and sent in my submission. I’m calling it a senryu because after the first line, it’s more about people than nature, but I’m happy with it.

Today, I received a kind but puzzling rejection email, which informed me that Haikuniverse had received “over 450 submissions from 225 poets” for its “Halloween themed” call, and they were sorry I had not made the cut, but encouraged me to try again for their general call. Luckily, I had already seen my poem among the 25 selected for the Valentine’s Day postings. Of course, the editor who sent the email was very apologetic, but I totally understand. I have gotten rejection letters for accepted work before, and I also sent some by mistake when I was a reader.

I’m grateful to everyone at Haikuniverse who chose my poem, and I enjoyed all of the 25, though I think my favorite is the Sasquatch personal ad. Please go check out the whole series–they are a quick, varied, thoroughly enjoyable read.

Soon to Be Out with JAKE

Violin keyring, with keys. Taken by me.

If I were single, I would have swiped left on JAKE. Here’s how his own people describe him: JAKE is the punkest little shit you know. He doesn’t want to eat his vegetables, he doesn’t want to wake up for school, he doesn’t want to follow the established trends of what makes good literary writing good and bad literary writing bad. Also, Poetry longer than [10 pages] scares him, since he doesn’t actually know how to read.

By contrast, I never cared for “punk . . . little shit[s],” even back in the day; I never objected to vegetables (except lima beans and sometimes Brussels sprouts); I often woke up early for school to practice my scales and arpeggios; and I read so much they gave me a Ph.D. in English literature. Yet turns out, JAKE and I share a rebellious attitude toward “established trends of what makes good literary writing good and bad literary writing bad.” For example, I think we both believe that talking about one’s literary magazine in the third person as though it were a dysfunctional character named JAKE (of course he spells his name in all caps) is fresh and funny. And neither of us appears to believe that a poem isn’t worthy if it doesn’t engage in sophisticated language play. We seem to think voice, imagery and, yes, story or situation, can also do the job.

At least, this is the conclusion I came to when I received this report by Heather Ann F. Pulido, one of JAKE’s poetry editors, on JAKE’s reactions to my poems “When I Retire” and “VIOLIN”: “JAKE really dug the overall vibe of your submissions, particularly the crisp images. He wants to know if it’s cool to run them on the site on March 6?”

Thanks for passing that on, Editor Pulido. Actually, I am really starting to warm to this JAKE guy. I not only said “Yes, please,” I’ve decided to stalk JAKE online by reading more works he’s liked. But I don’t want to have him all to myself–you guys can stalk him, too. Just keep it on the down-low. Public popularity might ruin JAKE’s rep.

Fevers of the Mind Anthology Containing my Essay Arrives

New Fevers of the Mind Anthology with 80s pepper grinder. Taken by me.

Recently, the new anthology from Fevers of the Mind that I wrote about in my last post arrived. I look forward to reading it, and was happy to notice that the deliciously morbid Frogg Corpse is represented. Thanks again, David L O’Nan!

If you are celebrating Valentine’s Day, have a happy one. If not, check out Frogg Corpse at the link above, or listen to my favorite wallow piece.

“House of Words” Out in Art & Music Anthology

I am pleased to announce that The Fevers of the Mind Poetry, Art & Music Issue 9: The Essentials Issue 1 (2019-2023) is out and contains my essay, “House of Words,” about my hyper-intellectual, dysfunctional family, which I wrote about here. This link includes all the markets where the anthology is available. Many thanks to Editor David L O’Nan for reprinting this piece.

Photo credit: Illustration: Sapna Khandwala, Public Library of Science. One way of mental exercise. From Fig. 1 of Gatz M (2005) Educating the Brain to Avoid Dementia: Can Mental Exercise Prevent Alzheimer Disease? PLoS Med 2(1): e7. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020007. 25 Jan. 2005. Wikimedia Commons. CC BY 2.5.

The Alien Buddha’s Best of 2023 Arrives

The Alien Buddha’s Best of 2023. Taken by me.

Just a note to say my copy of The Alien Buddha’s Best of 2023 has arrived. It has a lot of good reading in it besides my poem, Trump Signs Bibles in Alabama (reprinted from my collection, The Great Garbage Patch). Get The Alien Buddha’s Best of 2023 in color here or black and white here, and let all us besties entertain you.

Best of Alien Buddha Is Out, and Philly Open Mic

The Alien Buddha’s Best of 2023, cover. Promotional photo.

The Alien Buddha‘s Best of 2023, which, as I’ve said, contains a poem from my collection, The Great Garbage Patch, is out and available here (in color) or here (in black and white). The poem is “Trump Signs Bibles in Alabama,” which I discussed here. If this volume is anything like last year’s Best of, it’s good! Go get yourself some goodness.

In Other News, I enjoyed the Philly Pigeon open mic, “The Late(ish) Poetry Show,” on a recent trip to Philadelphia. Hosted by Kai Davis and Jacob Winterstein and featuring the talented and passionate Rasheed Copeland, the show combines poetry, interview, light entertainment, and community uplift for an eclectic bohemian audience. The hosts choose names out of a bowl for the open mic. This time I prepared by memorizing Kayaking on Lady Bird Lake. Luckily, Jacob chose my name, so I got to perform, and it went well.

I like giving a dramatic rendition by memory, rather than just reading. I can really make the poetry come alive, though I did get a little nervous. The audience was enthusiastic, and Kai made some supportive, encouraging remarks. After the feature and his interview, we open mic-ers came back to perform in various lighthearted poetry games, and the audience voted on us. Everyone had fun, and I felt honored to perform there. Overall, a great evening I recommend to anyone who has the opportunity to go. Thanks again, Kai and Jacob!

Set for the Philly Pigeon’s open mic with guest feature. Taken by me.