Hey everyone, just a reminder. There’s a poetry reading tomorrow, May 6th at the main branch of the Richmond Public Library. Leona Sevick and Jeffery Schwaner are both great poets and it should be a fantastic reading. If you are at all able to please come by from 11 to 1 on the Veranda in the back (Gelman room if this rain doesn’t go away.) I’m looking forward to seeing everyone there.

  Jeff Schwaner is the Storytelling and Watchdog Coach at The News Leader in Staunton. His recent investigative story on the Board of Pharmacy won the best public service story nationwide among the USATODAY Network’s 51 small newsrooms in 2016, as well as best data journalism prize from the Virginia Press Association. His poetry has been published in Beloit Poetry Journal and New Orleans Review. His most recent book is Wind Intervals, published in April by St Brigid Press.

Leona Sevick PhD, provost of Bridgewater College, is the Author of Lion Brothers, winner of 2017 Press 53 Poetry Award and the chapbook, Damaged Little Creatures, from FutureCycle Press. She won first place in the 2012 Split This Rock poetry contest, judged by Naomi Shihab Nye. Her poems have appeared in The Journal, Little Patuxent Review, Barrow Street, Poet Lore, and North American Review among others. Follow her at leonasevick.com

There’s going to be an anthology for the Bridge Water Poetry Festival featuring some of my work. I think it’s coming out at the end of the year(?) and will be titled What Lies Beyond the Frame. There were so many great readers at the festival, I look forward to reading the book.

I was a finalist in the poetry contest. It’s not a win, but it’s still exciting. Wish I were in New Orleans so I could use the free pass to the festival.  Visit the site to purchase tickets or enter the contest next year: http://tennesseewilliams.net/

I’d like to give a special shout out to Zavia Willis who woke up earlier than she otherwise would have to film this. You should be able to find several of her other videos if you follow these links.

I really intended to get this posted sooner, but at least its not after the fact. I’m reading this Sat at 9:00 am at Bridgewater College.  The Festival kicks off this Thursday, but I won’t be able to make it until Friday. Sounds like there will be a ton of great poets and workshops. I’m really excited to take part. Hope to see you there. If I can get some good footage I’ll post it.

It’s Jack o’ Lantern time again. I did a poor job at taking pictures, but my sister in law at least got this one. My son wanted another dragon so I came up with a different design. My daughter wanted a raccoon which was much simpler, but came out looking quite nice. Wish I could show you.

While it has been nearly four months since my last blog post that is not how I intend to quantify time.  Let me start in the familiar. Let me start with our common Earthbound markers.

It has been almost exactly one year since my last poem was published.

It has been one year six months and two weeks since my last acceptance letter.

And to put it in the context that really matters, the one that super imposes itself on my terrestrial clock inducing the sense of floating through the void above: it has been roughly 114 rejection letters since my last acceptance. So if that’s not thick skin I don’t know what is.

Anyway you can probably guess where all this dramatic babbling is coming from. I finally got another piece accepted. Slipstream press has said they will publish my poem “In All Your Imperfect Form” next summer (2017) in an issue themed on, “the road.” If you’ve ever heard me read you’ve probably heard this one. I first wrote it back in 2011 and I have always considered it one of my best. It is probably my most rewritten and most submitted poem. So after all this time and effort I am very happy and satisfied that such a fine and venerable journal as Slipstream has decided to pick this particular poem to publish.

Here’s to not having to wait another year and half before the next acceptance letter. Cheers y’all thanks for sticking with me.

—Headline from Space.com
I have heard of the Black Forrest,
imagined where Hansel and Gretel played.
Some people believe in ghosts,
haunt houses grown from human ears.
I believe in marionette children
stomping it out, hard cheeked and whistle eyed.
Outside a forest of empty street lights leave
pink and yellow feathers to fade in the muck.
Inside my bare feet take note of bread crumbs on our floor.
It’s five in the morning and the baby is rooting.
The microwave hums. I speak of the lost and an improbable house
to distract her. She can’t even find her own thumb for succor.
Our lives are fairytales; everything works out
just a little more brutally than expected.

I stumbled across this review http://www.newpages.com/magazine-reviews/phantom-drift-fall-2015.

They site my poem “Will We Ever find Dark Matter”.

Pretty hot.