A Week o’ Poems in Print

One of those rare weeks when serendipitously three poems appear in print…In the mail, the Fall 2004 (!!)
Diner appeared (which included not just my poem but two wonderful poems by Natasha Moni) as well as the new American Poetry Journal,which was chock-full of good poems, a lot of them by people whose names I recognized from online communities – Paul Guest, Steve Mueske, C.J. Sage, and Ilya Kaminsky. Wondering through Barnes and Nobles my husband picked up a copy of the Spring 2004 Puerto del Sol, which happened to be the issue my poem was in – as well as a great poem by J.P Dancing Bear, who publishes American Poetry Journal. (Eerie twilight zone music here.) It was strange to get these journals after all my recent weeks of not submitting very much.Maybe it’s the universe’s way of telling me to send poems out. I’ve been writing more, which feels good, anyway, but I’ve been having strange nightmares – possibly these things are connected?
To balance out the warm fuzzies, I also got four rejections on one day this week, which is always bracing – I’m feeling discouraged about my first book manuscript, which is still making the rounds, 19 months now. Especially after you shell out $20 a pop for a one-sheet winner announcement, you start to feel like the game is playing you, instead of the other way around. I’ve sent to a couple of publishing houses who publish without running contests (Gray Wolf, Carnegie Mellon University Press) but I should probably send to even more. Although, to counter-balance that, I’ve had really good responses from people on the poetry in my chapbook, which makes me think, maybe what I’m writing is worthwhile after all, that someone besides my mom, husband, and four best friends wants to read the weird stuff I write. I even have to order more copies for my next two readings! The surprising thing is that, after the chapbook came out in January, I had four different journals contact me about publishing work that was in the chapbook. Has this happened to other people? Hey, believe me, I’m not complaining, just curious.
Also, a quick report from ComicCon, which, yes, I went to and enjoyed immensely. (ComicCon, if you don’t know this from listening to the dialogue of the O.C., is a big comic book conference that tours big cities once a year, including Seattle.) I had a great time wafting through the crowds of girls in Goth getups and many, many young men in their twenties – I really enjoyed looking at all the work by the comic book artists, it was a little like going to a museum where everything is for sale and you can get it signed! The artist at Top Cow, Mike Choi, who does beautiful, baroque work was absolutely swamped with fans, and there was this booth where hopeful comic book artists could get people from Marvel to evaluate their work and tell them what they needed to do to get published in the industry. Wow, wouldn’t that be great if at AWP there were some top publishers and writers at a booth where you could walk up with your poems and they’d be like, “Yes, focus on blank, which is your strength, and cut out your adverbs, and then we’ll take a look at your manuscript!” Seriously, I thought it was a warm and supportive atmosphere for creative folks, and I recommend a visit for poets who need to channel their inner superhero. Also, to accompany my poem about Wonder Woman fighting Nazis (see “Wonder Womans Dream of the Amazon” in the American Poetry Journal and, of course, the chapbook, “Female Comic Book Superheroes”) I now have a huge poster of Wonder Woman fighting…Nazis! I mean, how great is that! I recommend Superhero posters for every poet’s writing nook. My husband’s getting it framed for me for Valentine’s Day. Isn’t it romantic…