One more piece of good poetry news to add to this week’s party. Brian Leary, Caroline Klocksiem, and Sarah Vap, editors at 42opus, have accepted two poems for upcoming publication: “If Given the Chance” and “June Meditations.” 42opus is one of my many favorites of online journals, and they published another poem of mine several years ago, so it’s nice to be working with them again.

Today, I’m drafting a new poem, which is always exciting and scary at the same time.

It’s the coldest day of the year here in Little Rock, and I’m poised in front of the space heater with the cat. Yesterday, the copy of Amaud Jamaul Johnson’s Red Summer that I’d requested from the library came in. I just read it cover to cover and may now have to buy it. The number of sticky tags marking poems I want to go back to are overwhelming.

Some of you may remember that I blogged about a few of Johnson’s poems in December, when I was reading the latest Indiana Review. The book lives up to the new poems Johnson is publishing now. The poems in this book contain images of love and violence, despair and hope, and all of the other pairing of opposites that go with living. Many of the poems are based in the history of racial discord in America (hence the title, referring to the race riots across America in 1919), while others feel intensely personal. Johnson’s voice ranges from lyric to narrative and everything in between and projects a confident steadiness. I knew I was in good hands from the first page.

Here are some of my favorites.

From “Chicago Citizen Testifies in His Defense”
“The fate of the rock, like that of the boy,
falls somewhere between gravity and god.”

From “On This Side of Mercy” (after Mississippi John Hart)
“When I close my eyes and palm the soundboard,
My fingers make a constellation, and my mind is all about
The last time with my woman; her nails strumming
My ribcage, how her name tastes, hovering in my mouth
Like a circle of smoke. Then the cry I let go, like a bird
Perched on my tongue. Then each chord, a new vein opening.
And then I don’t give a damn about nothing anymore.”

From “A Fear of Thunder”
“And that cry seemed to claw
From her body, not her throat,
Nor anyplace ever made for singing.

———

Of this pain, what women
Know, her cry seemed carved
Of muscle and soft bone.”

Just to keep the universe in balance, I received two rejections today. Still, they were much easier to take given the last few days of success.

Sometimes putting in the hard work of drafting, drafting, drafting pays off. Two acceptances came my way in two days. Yippee!

Thanks to Tom Holmes and the other editors over at Redactions for taking “Voice Box,” which should be out in Issue 12, Fall ’09.

Also, thanks to Jon Thompson, the editor of Free Verse, for accepting “Myth Born” for the Fall ’09 issue.

One older acceptance to report. Two weeks ago, Rhett Iseman Trull, the editor of Cave Wall, accepted “Glacial Elegy I” for the Summer/Fall ’09 issue. This one is also special because the manuscript title comes from this three-poem series, and this is the first individual poem of the three to be accepted for publication. Yay!

Thanks for all of the support!

This post is for anyone who has tried to reach out to me on Facebook.

A few days ago, a good friend sent me a nudge to get signed up on Facebook. It’s something I’ve been meaning to do for quite a while and just never got around to. Within minutes, many of you began adding me as a friend (or trying to). So, I clicked on the link to join Facebook and filled out the form. Then, I got rejected. Well, not me so much as my name. Bizarre.

I’m in a holding pattern at the moment, having filed a report with the help desk at Facebook. For those of you who’ve added me, I’m flattered and will follow up if/when the situation is resolved.

Like many other writers I know, I tend to be a pack rat when it comes to books and magazines. Books are easy. Once they are on the shelf, I can scan the spines and fairly easily recall the story, the premise, or the more difficult to name cohesion of a poetry collection.

However, I have a problem with literary journals and trade magazines. In order to keep current with the writing world, I subscribe to several of these, including Poets & Writers, American Poetry Review, and The Writer’s Chronicle (as a member of AWP). Since I find value in what I read within these volumes, I keep them. I line them up on the shelf or in the storage bin under the futon in my office. From time to time, as I shelve a new issue, I wonder why I keep them. I’ve never gone back and leafed through issues I’ve already read, as I do with books.

Then, today, it happened. I was reading a blog that referenced an article I thought I might be interested in. I googled the article and discovered that it had been published in The Writer’s Chronicle in Oct/Nov of 2003. I recieved my MFA in May 2003 and became a member of AWP sometime before that. A surge of geaky excitement pulsed within. I finally had a reason to delve into the backissues under the futon.

Heady with excitement, or at least just eager to read the article, I pushed my desk chair aside and dragged the plastic storage bin into the light of day. I wiped another month’s worth of dust from the cover and popped the handles loose. I dug through the stack, found 2004 towards the bottom, and got a bit nervous. There didn’t seem to be enough copies to get me into 2003. My fingers swept across the bottom of the bin and fished up the last copy I had (the first copy I’d thought to keep): December 2003.

Arrrrrrrrrgh.

**Two hours later it struck me that the Chronicle might archive the articles online. Sure enough, there it was. Now I seriously question this desire to keep the physical object when the content is preserved for all time online.

Today the new (and, sadly, final) volume of the Arkansas Literary Forum came out. Published by Marck Beggs over at Henderson State University for the past 10 years, this online journal is a great highlight of writers with Arkansas connections. I’m honored to be included in this publication.

Good luck, Marck!

In the mail today…two rejections from lit mags and a dismal statement from my 403(b).

Also, the sun we had for two days seems to have given itself up to gray.

Feeling petulant.

When I received and read the January 2009 issue of Poetry, I loved the letter to the editor from Alice Pillsbury of Houston, Texas. Pillsbury wrote in representation of a poetry study group at Treemont Retirement Community. Their group had been reading and discussing poetry for four years when they decided to subscribe to Poetry. The letter expresses their disappointment with the magazine. To quote: “We cannot make head or tail out of your selected ‘poems.’ We agree that there is no rhyme and very little reason — only phrases, snatches of words or thoughts in random order, with very little cohesion.”

Now, there is a podcast available where Christian Wiman (Editor) and Don Share (Senior Editor) discuss the poems in the January issue, with Alice Pillsbury reporting on what her group thought of them. (This discussion begins at roughly 15:30 within the podcast.)

I like this discussion because everyone involved seems willing to be open and honest about his/her reaction to the poems.

Over the last few days, I’ve spent several hours doing the “office work” of being a writer. I prepared a dozen submissions for literary magazines and then three submissions for book contests.

I spent a couple of days tinkering with Glacial Elegies — took out two poems, added four. It’s gotten to the point where I’ve lived with the manuscript for so long that it’s hard to adjust it without feeling like a house of cards is about to come tumbling down. Pick the wrong thread to pluck and the whole sweater vest comes unraveled. Etc. Still, it’s nice to feel the poems becoming something more than their individual selves. On rereading the manuscript, I’m sometimes taken by surprise when I find another link between two poems that I hadn’t seen before.

New book on the reading table: House Held Together by Winds by Sabra Loomis.