Gratitude for Poems Newly Published

Poems of mine are appearing in a spring crop of publications. My thanks to the editors of Iron Horse Literary Review, who chose my poem “My God as the BBC Sherlock,” and especially to Managing Editor Jennessa Hester for making this fabulous video trailer for the poem! (If you’d like to support the journal, you can order an issue or subscribe here.)

And thanks to the editors of Cider Press Review for including my poem “Give Me a Story to Busy My Mind”, about the horse I grew up with, in Volume 24.6.

In addition, my gratitude to the editors of Pontoon, the online journal of Floating Bridge Press, where two chapbook manuscripts of mine reached the semifinalist and finalist rounds in last year’s competition, for featuring two poems from those manuscripts. “Landscape with Selfobjects” mythologizes you-know-who as Narcissus, and “On the Twelfth Day of My Faith Crisis” is a backwards Christmas carol about climate anxiety (and also a love poem).

And finally, a poem from my chapbook Impossible Lessons is reprinted in the anthology Between Paradise & Earth: Eve Poems, out this month from Orison Books, edited by Nomi Stone and Luke Hankins. I’m very grateful to them for including my work in this beautiful collection of contemplations and interventions by contemporary poets. You can support the press by ordering a copy here.

Later this year, I’m excited for issues of EcoTheo Review, Whale Road Review, and RHINO Poetry containing my poems.

A Poetry Reading–in Person! Thursday, 1/19/23

I get to do my first live poetry reading since the start of the pandemic! It’ll be with Dayna Patterson and Allie Spikes, members of Madrona Writers (one of my workshop groups), at SoulFood Poetry Night in Redmond, WA, 6:00 p.m.

SoulFood Poetry Night, hosted by Michael Dylan Welch, is a long-running reading series attracting a warm, engaged community of poets and poetry lovers. I’ve had the pleasure of reading there twice in the past, and am looking forward to doing so again with my groupmates on January 19th!

Gratitude for Poetry Publications in 2022

This year has brought good news for my poems published in journals. I’m gathering them here to share with you and express my thanks!

The beautifully curated River Heron Review published my poem “After Rain, My Husband and I Hike the Tree Farm Slope.”

Watershed Review, out of Cal State Chico, published my prose poem “Look to the Sky and Shake Your Head.”

Pacifica Review, from right here in Washington State, published “Landscape with User Instructions.” (Check out the stunning cover photo on the journal’s home page.)

The Pennsylvania journal Lake Effect published “Self-Portrait of Lilith, to Eve” in their Spring issue.

And Braided Way nominated my poem “Placebo Effect” for a Best of the Net award!

I’m grateful to the editors & staff of all these journals for including my work and curating such lovely issues. And I have to say: it’s still a marvel to me to find my poems surrounded by the work of writers I’ve admired for many years–a wonder to see my words placed in conversation with theirs.

In 2023, I look forward to new print issues of RHINO Poetry and Iron Horse Literary Review that will contain my poems. I’m also excited for the April release of the anthology Between Paradise and Earth: Eve Poems from Orison Books, which includes a poem from Impossible Lessons. The anthology is open for pre-orders if you’d like to reserve a copy and help out the press!

Syrinx, Semele, and the Sirens: Reframing Myths “For All Our Sisters” with Seattle Early Music– Onstage at Last

You may remember my being commissioned, back in 2018, to write the libretto for a cantata reframing the mythical Sirens by Seattle composer Aaron Grad. Our collaboration resulted in Honey-sweet we sing for you, an eleven-minute cantata for soprano, flute, and harpsichord. The cantata premiered in March 2019 with Burning River Baroque of Cleveland as part of its program “The Other Side of the Story: Untold Perspectives on Familiar Tales.” The performance by Seattle Baroque Orchestra, originally scheduled for spring 2020, was delayed by the pandemic, so we made a video series featuring snippets and adaptations of the planned performances, along with performer interviews, for audiences to view online.

Finally, with the arts reopened, I’m thrilled to say that the full program of “For All Our Sisters” will be performed at Town Hall Seattle on Sunday, June 12th, 2:00 p.m. The hour-long program will consist of works reinterpreting the stories of mythical women–Syrinx, Semele, and the Sirens–for the #MeToo era. It melds original poems by former Washington State Poet Laureate Claudia Castro Luna and by me, dance by Mylvia Pacheco, and performances for soprano and ensemble of Michel Pignolet de Montéclair’s 1713 Pan et Syrinx, Élisabeth Jacquet de la Guerre’s 1715 Semelé, Bach’s Sarabande (for Semele), and Aaron Grad’s Honey-sweet we sing for you. You can read more here about the performers and program, and detailed program notes here by Dr. Paula Maust of Burning River Baroque.

Ticket options are for the live performance on June 12, and for the virtual performance available online starting Saturday, June 18th, 7 p.m. PST. I hope whether you’re near or far, you can join us for this program!

Recent Publications

My gratitude for two pieces published in journals recently:

My essay “Spiderwebs and Thimbleberries” in the current print issue of Indiana Review. This piece weaves reflections on walking, eco-anxiety prompted by Pacific Northwest drought, and my experiences as a prospective juror in a federal trial in Seattle. Plus birds!

Fall 2021/Winter 2022 Issuehttps://indianareview.org/

My poem “Placebo Effect,” reprinted from my collection Impossible Lessons in the online journal Braided Way:

PLACEBO EFFECT   

So I go to the doctor of philosophy
for my annual metaphysical. He asks me
the usual questions: Any irregularity
with your epistemology? Are the meds
still helping with those intermittent bouts
of doubt? I tell him Yes, but that recently
it has taken on a hyper-Cartesian
tinge, going beyond the use of “not”
as a helpful tool for testing a suspect
reality. It has progressed to a troublesome
tendency toward generalized negation, a habit
of rejecting every supposition. The doc says,
Then we’d better increase your dosage
to get this under control. With your
phenomenological pressure so elevated, I think
you are at risk of rupture. Well, I say,
that may be, but how would you know?
He’s good, that doc. He comes right back
with How do you know that you’re not?
So we agree I’ll try a higher dose.
But don’t go thinking I am going to believe
that it will work.

Please Join Us! “Solstice: Light & Dark of the Salish Sea” Reading Sunday, April 11, 7pm

I’m delighted to participate in a multi-author reading of this beautiful new anthology, edited by Carla Shaffer, of poetry of the winter and summer solstices–two very distinctive times of year here in the Pacific Northwest. Thank you sincerely, Carla, for including my work in this beautiful book!

J.I. Kleinberg describes the event here: https://thepoetrydepartment.wordpress.com/2021/04/10/solstice-tomorrow/.

Village Books in Bellingham is hosting the event on Zoom: https://www.villagebooks.com/event/litlive-sostice-041121 . Please click through to register, and we hope to see you there!

Upcoming Installments of SpeakEasy 27: “A Spiritual Thread”

Please join us for the third, fourth, and fifth rounds of SpeakEasy 27: A Spiritual Thread, featuring Dayna Patterson, Susan Alexander, Luther Allen, Bruce Beasley, and me. Round 3 will take place this Saturday evening, January 16th, 2021, at 7:00 p.m. PST. To get the Zoom link, all you need to do is send an email to othermindpress@gmail.com, and you’ll receive an email reply with the sign-in info.

Luther Allen previews this installment by saying, “On Saturday night each of the five poets . . . will read one poem and discuss how it links to previous poems. There will also be a short group discussion, and question and answer session with listeners. We anticipate the program will last about an hour. This round will be particularly interesting because it was written as the Covid pandemic started to impact our lives, and its injection into the writing process was dramatic.“

For more details, and to view video recordings of the first two rounds, please go to Luther’s SpeakEasy page. Hope to see you for round 3, and on the following dates for rounds 4 and 5:

Round #4: Saturday, February 6 (7 p.m. PST)
Round #5: Saturday, February 27 (7 p.m. PST)

SpeakEasy 27: Sat., 11/14/20, 7pm PST

Please join us on Zoom this Saturday, Nov. 14, 7 p.m. PST for (virtual) SpeakEasy 27: A Spiritual Thread! Dayna Patterson, Susan Alexander, Luther Allen, Bruce Beasley, and I will read and talk about our series of linked “String Theory” poems, written sequentially in five cycles this past year. We’ll present and discuss the first five poems this coming Saturday, November 14th, and the second cycle in December (TBA).

Check out the details at The Poetry Department. To participate, send an email to othermindpress@gmail.com, and you’ll receive a reply with sign-in info. Hope to see you there!

“Honey-Sweet We Sing for You”: A Poetic Collaboration (My Guest Post at The Poetry Department)

Please check out my guest post at J.I. Kleinberg’s blog, The Poetry Department, about my collaboration with Seattle composer Aaron Grad on our cantata reinterpreting the Sirens myth for the Early Music Seattle program “For All Our Sisters”! Click here:  “Honey-Sweet We Sing for You”: A Poetic Collaboration.

UPDATE 7/24: The videos I made about the cantata are now live on the Early Music Seattle “For All Our Sisters” Performances page. Click on my photo to view the hour-long interview with Claudia Castro-Luna and me, and click on the Sirens painting below it to view the three-minute video of me describing my approach to the Sirens myth in writing the libretto.

Thanks, too, to Early Music Seattle for featuring me in their weekly Clef Notes series. Scroll halfway down to “This Week’s Selections” to see their very kind words about my poetry and a gathering of links to my work available online.

Gratitude for Good Things in Spring 2020

I have many thanks to pass along to journal editors, amid the pandemic and heavy griefs of this spring, for bright spots of cheer and good publication news. Back in March, Terrain.org published my poem “the summer the sun hid” as part of its Letters to America series. Cherry Tree included my poem “Narcissus in Love,” about you-know-who enamored of his own reflection, in its annual issue. EcoTheo Review published my poem “Mother Earth’s Easter Address” in both its print and online issues.

And I found a wonderful home in the journal Cave Wall for “Landscape with Unsettled Figures,” the concluding poem in one of my full-length manuscripts. I’ve been submitting poems to Cave Wall for over eleven years; it’s one of my “dream” journals, featuring superb poems and beautiful wood-block prints. Not only did editor Rhett Iseman Trull select it to publish in this spring’s issue; she also, astonishingly, nominated it for a Pushcart Prize and a Best New Poets award. Much gratitude to all these editors for supporting my poetry in these ways.

[UPDATE: “Landscape with Unsettled Figures” has also been picked up for Verse Daily! Click on “Archives” to find my poem posted on June 15, 2020. My sincere thanks to editor J.P. Dancing Bear for choosing it!]

I wish safety and good health to you and all your loved ones. If you can, will you join me in making donations to the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, the American Civil Liberties Union, Black Lives Matter Global Network, or community bail fund of your choice to support the fight for human rights in America?