Birmingham Arts Journal FTW!

I am pleased to report that the Birmingham Arts Journal has just notified me that they'll publish my poem "Things I Learned When You Left" in their January 2009 issue. Hooray for poem placement! Hip hip hooray! This one was workshopped at the Spring 2008 residency (with Greg, again - he's my lucky charm).

Prompt: Political Love Poem

Yesterday was the first meeting of Earl Braggs's poetry workshop here at UTC, which I'm pleased to take again. The prompt? Write a political love poem, however you may define 'political' and 'love.' I thought this would be a great opportunity to re-cast my poem "The House That Falls Down," the title piece of my chapbook of war poetry. It's a piece I wrote while my brother was at war as a marine, but I needed to recast it because originally, there was no soldier, and there was no "I" personality to the poem. The rewrite turned out to be pretty long, but I'd love to get some feedback on this draft:

Edit: Poem removed due to submission for publication

Blood Orange Review Takes a Poem

Merry news! Blood Orange review took my poem "Reclaiming Poverty," one of (I think) the sassier pieces I've written. More news on this once I know which issue it'll be in!

Concho River Review Also Decides I'm Worth Publishing - W00T

Quickie update on this one: if you decide to subscribe to the Concho River Review, you'll see a piece of mine in the Spring 2009 issue. Thank you, Jerry Bradley, Poetry Editor. You just made my Friday! If you were closer than Texas, I would buy you a beer.

Update (Again): Bellowing Ark

These past few days have really been a whirlwind. Placements in Gentle Strength Quarterly and in Paradigm, as well as another solicitation from Bellowing Ark to round out their selection of my Lilith pieces for the Feature section of the Fall 2008 issue. I also just got notification that a grant proposal I wrote to help me get to a library conference in October was approved to the tune of $1000. As a pal on Friendfeed mentioned, it is raining awesome all over me.

Anyway, in addition to the general awesome mentioned above, I just received the latest response from Bellowing Ark. In addition to the pieces they've already accepted ("The Book," "God in my Throat," "Retrieval," "Drawing Board" and "Original Sin" from the Lilith collection, and "I Want a Man," "July Night in Hoptown," "Ice Storm" and "Flash in the Pan"), to round out the feature of Lilith pieces, they've chosen "Occupying the Children," "I Will Not Lie Below," "Temptation" and "It Would Not Have Been Well."

A deserved shout-out to Greg Pape, this semester's poetry mentor, who has seen and commented on all of these pieces. Dear Greg: at the rate the revisions you suggest are getting accepted, I will totally owe my first book deal to you. I hope your wife doesn't mind if I say I love you.

Anyway. Yes, woo for the coup at Bellowing Ark - I was really concerned that these poems wouldn't find a home, being such a related series. I am *so happy* that Editor Robert Ward turned out to be a fan of this sort of exploration of traditional roles and of a female speaker who refuses to fit into those preconceived roles. It's been a very personal journey for me (and one that's not quite over, I think), and I've been hoping that someone would see the value in the collection.

Imagine how thrilled I am to get a request for the full manuscript.

Oh, yes. You read that right.

A request for the full manuscript once I read the journal and see how they do their thang. Go ahead and gimme some intarweb high-fives, people. Poets go lifetimes without getting that sort of affirmation. And if it doesn't pan out, someone still asked for it. I think that's a thrill that will never go away.

Another Publication: Paradigm

W00t, yet another e-mail in my inbox that sparked the Happy Dance. The editors of the online quarterly Paradigm have picked up my poem "Unwanted," which is the very first of the Lilith poems. (I think it kicks off the collection nicely). It should appear in the Fall issue of Paradigm - once that issue is up, I'll be sure to post here about it so you can read it.

I'm really thrilled the Lilith pieces are finding homes - I was beginning to worry that they wouldn't. Thanks, all you awesome editors with good taste out there!

Holy Shite: Bellowing Ark Update

Can I get a quick "Holy Shite" from the world? An email from Bellowing Ark's editor just informed me that he'd like a bevy of those solicited non-Lilith poems for a future issue of Bellowing Ark, as well as some more of the Lilith pieces to round out the selection of my pieces that will comprise the "Featured Poet" spread in the upcoming issue.

Forgive me while I do the Big Yee Haw Funky Publishing Dance of the Poet. *does ridiculously unflattering and un-coordinated body-jerking dance*

Ahem.

So yes, Bellowing Ark will be publishing a great deal of my poetry. The titles accepted last time around were "God in my Throat," "Retrieval," "The Book," "Drawing Board," and "Original Sin" - all pieces from the Lilith collection (which I've tentatively titled God in my Throat). This time, the editor has chosen (from my non-Lilith selections) "I Want a Man," "Ice Storm," "July Night in Hoptown" and "Flash in the Pan." These are, except for "Ice Storm," all pieces from my first semester when I was working with Jeanie Thompson, and she has to get credit for taking these from the pretty rough places where they started to the nicely revised, publishable pieces that I'm really proud of. "Ice Storm" I have to thank Greg Pape and the folks in my second residency workshop for helping me revise - their feedback and suggestions were very helpful.My faculty mentor-poets and my writerly colleagues (both students and non-students) have really been an invaluable resource in helping me refine my work.

Expect a post soon on my opinion on the value of the MFA in Creative Writing - it's a hotly debated topic with a lot of naysayers, and being the opinionated minx that I am, I'm darn well going to have my say about it. As soon as I know which Lilith pieces will round out my "Featured" section in Bellowing Ark, I'll post on that, too. (Is it inappropriate to promise an editor a big wet kiss if they've already accepted your work?)