Interview and chapbook giveaway

There's a three-part interview with me up at Savvy Verse & Wit, plus a review of Secret Love Poems and a chapbook lottery. If you'd like to try your luck at winning a copy of the chapbook, just leave your e-mail address here. The deadline is 26 February 2009.

Thanks so much for this honor, Serena!!


Currently at the Event Museum:

• Am seriously considering renaming this blog as The Event Museum... where for months only one important event is happening — based on a ticklish collaboem I've been writing with Valerie.

• Have been busy redesigning my website. Good grief. I've been rechecking all the links from way back in 1995... and finding so many dead bodies, I mean, dead 'zines. At this rate, I'm going to outlive all my publication credits.

• Am scheduled to leave for Manila on Friday... and so have only three days more to get my act together — which includes answering my messages — or will be forced to forever hold my peace. Hee.


Recent publications:

• qarrtsiluni has posted the first collaboem (with Valerie) in their "Mutating the Signature" series, In retrospect, 1984 made a fine sausage. The audio file is between me and John Vick.

• Three poems: Polish Dancer Prelude (sonnet), The Local Physician Returns to the Ski Lodge and The 38th Secret Love Poem are in Issue 2 of Blackbox Manifold together with the works of Vahni Capildeo, Joshua Clover, Vona Groarke, Alan Halsey, Lisa Jarnot, John Kinsella, Peter Larkin, Matt Merritt, Drew Milne, Geraldine Monk, Paul Muldoon, Vivek Narayanan, Chris Nealon, Francis Raven, Ian Seed, Ben Stainton, Kyle Storm, Matthew Sweeney and Nathan Thompson.

Double yikes

Let's pretend it's still January... 2008. So this blog entry is almost a year early. Hee.

Special Events in The AA Event Museum:,

• The January-April 2009 issue of Press 1 came out too soon, a case of multiple breech births, with the following bouncing bunnies: Lydia Cortes, Nicole Cartwright Denison, Theresa Edwards, David Erlewine, Rebecca Guyon, Mark Lowe, Lilla Lyon, Sally Molini, Michelle Panik, Meg Pokrass, Ron Price, Don Riggs, Denise Scicluna, and Robert Anthony Watts.

• Someone fell off the 30:30 wagon three times. She is now on Day 23 (round 15) and should be able to make it with her favorite sandbox playmate, Valerie helping her out with the other half of the poems.

• Because drinking was making A one heck of a depressed drunk, she decided to stop... or at least drink only on weekends. Plus, the wine store across the street has had a change of owner. There's a woman there now. She has terrible wine — believe me I tried them all. I used to think I can glug down anything... I was mistaken.

• Have bought a ticket for Manila... and have started having anxiety dreams about the plane taking off without me again.

• The laptop caught a virus for the second time in two years and had to be reformatted. The cure seems to agree with Muerte (as re-baptized on 13 January 2009). Since then it's been more quiet, ventilator-wise. No more crazy chopper/hacking cough sounds. Yay!

• Chainsaw rant coming down here —

Recently discovered on my own that London Magazine didn't include my poem in their Anglo/Indian issue after all. I'm quite pissed about it since they didn't even bother to tell me after all this time when I could've sent it off elsewhere. Oh yes. I remember. On their guidelines page they say they don't send rejections. First they send me the proofs, with a two-day response time or else (they chopped off the first stanza, too without so much as a by-your-leave). I okayed everything next day, then sometime later got invited to the issue launch. A good thing I was in Philly that time... if I had gone all the way to London to read a poem that they chose not to publish, I'd probably have gone after somebody with a knife.

I guess I'm just pissed for the most part that that poem, which is about a woman mourning the death of her unborn child, didn't make it right next to that half-page SMB ad: for all your corporate and personal tax advice. Hee.

Anyway, I'm blacklisting this magazine. I think they're a bit better via snailmail, for some strange reason. But that was way back in 2007.


Recent (and not so recent) publications:

• The Winter 2009 issue of blossombones is now live — with poetry by Lana Hechtman Ayers, Margaret Bashaar, Elizabeth Bruno, Juliet Cook, Athena Dixon, Jo Hemmant, Amy Hinrichs, Charmi Keranen, Daniela Olszewska, Kristen Orser, Nanette Rayman Rivera, Toni Scales, Erin Elizabeth Smith, Bill Yarrow, Susan Yount, and (ahem).

• A new 'zine, Fleeting posted two poems, Confessions of a Road Sign Collector and Dream Interstate 104 on 26 January 2009.

• Canopic Jar #22 with poetry by coreyMesler, gabebaBaderoon, isobelDixon, johnMcCullough, kayMckenzieCooke, leeAnnPickrell, leeStern, matthewGillis, michelleMcgrane, myeshaJenkins, patrickSullivan, phillippaYaaDeVilliers, rethabileMasilo, roseDewyKnickers, ruthSabathRosenthal, santiagoDelDardanoTurann, and someKindofStrangeOrgan. They have some fab pRose and aRt sections, too.

This is an elegant online journal, quite eclectic tastes. With regards to response times, the editor actually wrote me on 17 December 2008 to ask if the poems were still available. The in-between e-mail exchange kind of made the waiting seem less.

     Submission sent: 7 October 2008
     Reply date: 9 January 2009

Okay. I confess. I knew he was my kind of editor when I read his e-mail signature quote:

         I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food.
                                  —W.C. Fields

Just because I no longer drink on weekdays (again), doesn't mean I've stopped thinking of it.

• Two poems, Mendel experiments and We stand the postal clerk are up in the current issue of Cricket Online Review (volume iv, number ii).

• Found out just last week that they made me (woohooo!) Featured Poet in Identity Theory (Summer/Fall 2008). Thanks for the nod, WP!


Recent (and not so recent) acceptances:

• Cerise Press accepted four poems (2 spanking new/2 oldish) on 5 February 2009:

If I had an eye patch, I'd give you my eye—
Orphanage
five : leap
six : sundown

for their first issue (Summer 2009). They officially open to unsolicited submission on 1 April 2009 — for the Fall/Winter 2009 issue. Don't forget. It's a neat, sleek 'zine. Response time was one day — really quick, but under normal circumstances they give 2-3 months in the guidelines.

• While hopping from one 'zine to another, I discovered Robot Melon and couldn't resist submitting. Who could resist such an order as ticklish as, In the body of the e-mail give us a 2-3 line biography. If you like a certain type of bear, this might be the place to mention it. Neat little bear trap, ain't it?

Anyway, I was thrilled that they accepted my prose poem, What Happens to the Postwoman When She Stops Delivering the Mail for Issue Nine. Nothing like some robot lovin' to wake up to in the morning. Hee.

     Submission sent: 30 December 2008
     Reply date: 18 January 2009

• Three collaboems, (1) Visions of Lamb Cooked in Slight Brine, (2) We Wrote a Letter to Jesus and He Told Us To Buy a New Car, and (3) In retrospect, 1984 made a fine sausage — that Valerie and I wrote last year have been accepted for publication in the Mutating the Signature issue of qarrtsiluni.

     Submission sent: 2 January 2009
     Reply date: 15 January 2009

• Wooopwooop!! I received my first ever flash fiction acceptance from Oak Bend Review. Very quick response times, too (see below)! My shorty, The Dreaming Lake is slated for their March/April 2009 issue.

     Submission sent: 4 January 2009
     Reply date: 8 January 2009