Contract signed and manuscript sent to Fernwood Press (@PressFernwood). Looking forward to the process of getting T’shuvah between covers. (The title means repentance in Hebrew, for those who don’t know).
Cody Peterson, from “Requiem For The Trees:”
—If there were ever a truly holy war, this struggle–to save the whole of life from ourselves–is it.
A Lit Match to Burn What Your Country Doesn’t Remember - The Offing, By THANH-TAM NGUYEN
I think it’s classy when publishers I’ve written to withdrawing a book query or ms that’s accepted elsewhere write back to say congratulations. I don’t judge those who don’t–who knows what their lives are like–but those who do help create a real sense of community.
Grading: I don’t think I have ever written “unclear meaning” or “I don’t understand” more times in response to a single essay than I just did.
I am grateful for the high school years I spent learning gemara every time I need to read contract language:
Getting a new car—buying or leasing—takes too damned long.
The First Time I Told Someone, which took me nearly 30 years to write is up at @solsticelitmag. It connects the first time I tried to the first time I told someone I was sexually violated as a boy. I wrote here about why it took so long.
The conclusion to “Two Sisters,” by Safia Jama, @safiapoet, from Notes On Resilience:
“Grandma’s womb must
have clenched
with double-grief.
Another daughter lost:
given to that gentleman caller.
His camel caravan bound for eternity.”
from “You,” by Zeenit Jacobs – in Botsotso
In two minds you were,
wrestling under cool satin sheets at witching hour
as my silhouette dances across your bedroom wall.
@Botsotso_Gova
From Leaving in Four Parts, by Brandon Hamber:
In a thousand invisible places
A charcoal sketch follows me
@Botsotso_Gova
My friend Ronny, whose memorial is later this month, took this picture of my hands while I was playing the piano at Edinburgh University in the summer of 1985. We were students at the Scottish Universities International Summer School. I miss her and I miss playing for her.
Blatant sexism last night at the First Tuesdays open mic. I called it out at the mic immediately afterwards and tried to talk to the guy during our break. He was defensive and unrepentant. Thinking to tell him he’s not welcome, but issues arise. Not his right to my platform…
From The New York Times. The images in this article are gorgeous: Gazing at the ‘Black Sun’: The Transfixing Beauty of Starling Murmurations
Classroom teaching is sometimes pure improvisation, but not because you are not prepared. Precisely the opposite: because you are so well prepared, the “compositional structure”—for want of a better phrase—so well-established, that you and your students walk away going, “Huh!”
From Essential Voices: Poetry of Iran and Its Diaspora, by Simin Behbahani, translated by Farzaneh Milani and Kaveh Safi: “You didn’t come when the sky was full of stars like grapes,/now that dawn has picked them one by one, come.”
@greenlinden1
You better get out of here before the storm hits, I repeated to Watson who just then produced a bag of sandwiches from the pocket of his greatcoat.
from “Silvia,” by Eric McWhinney, in Contrary Magazine
Finished Revolution Of The Scavengers, by Henneh Kyereh Kwaku, which is one of the chapbooks in this edition of New-Generation African Poets. Firmly rooted in place, in Ghana, it makes that place visible in ways that only poetry can. 📚 @kwaku_kyereh @akashicbooks
I run a reading series in my neighborhood called First Tuesdays. In February of 2020, just before the pandemic hit, we featured the work of incarcerated writer Peter Dunne. Two of our regulars read his poems. The video is here. I hope you’ll consider checking it out.
I just learned a new word: demisexual, someone who only feels sexually attracted to another person when they have an emotional bond with that person; and I learned it on @BookishlyJewish, a site to check out, in a review of The Un-Arranged Marriage, by Laura Brown.
Just had a very pleasant conversation with the manager of my campus bookstore. There is a fundamental conflict between their business model and our traditional expectations of a campus bookstore. Not her fault, but it screws with my course calendar from now till end of semester.
Another stack. This time they’re all books I own. I’m slowly starting to prep for my fall 22 sabbatical: a second, complete edition of the fourth book from the top, which I published 17 years ago. I need to remind myself of what’s on my shelves.
#persianpoetry #saadi
Grading, and I confess I am tired of students who, even after several reminders and even one-to-one non-punitive conversations, refuse to follow directions.
Went to AWP’s book fair yesterday. First time in ten years. Promised myself, I have backlog enough, not to leave with books, but those I buy from as a matter of principle were there. So I did. About half of these were gifts, though, so I only broke half my promise.
#awp22
