A Week of Rejections and Small Disasters, A Pushcart Nom, and Looking for the Beauty of the Everyday in December

Geese with Sun Flare in December – Everyday Beauty Series

A Week of Rejections and Small Disasters

This week’s blog post has two themes: looking for the beauty of the everyday and the weight of small disasters. So, to the left is a picture I took of geese flying with a sun flare (December light here has a unique color – almost peach.)

This week, besides the larger sadness of the burial of my grandmother on Monday, I received seven rejections, our dishwasher leaked and flooded the kitchen overnight, ruining some of the kitchen floor, then our internet went out, then no stores had dishwashers (the repair would have been over $500, so we just decided to get a new one…problem: nothing in stock, and installation would mean waiting til January.) We finally found one store that had a last dishwasher in stock and could drop it off in our garage (no install) and Glenn installed the dishwasher himself. The internet was out, the cable company sent out a tech who helped with the internet but broke off our phone service, so basically I spent 24 hours this week on the cell phone with various customer service people which I don’t recommend during the holidays. It was not a great week, and it ended with a three day migraine.

Greek Strawberry Tree

Looking for the Beauty of the Everyday in December

Since most of us can’t do the usual celebratory things right now due to covid, I made up a photo project this week to see the beauty in the everyday. To the left is a photo of a Greek Strawberry Tree that we saw in a parking lot. Now I want one to plant myself. So, having a week of smaller disasters and the continuing sadness of losing my grandmother to covid, I wanted to find the grace, the things to be thankful for, in a time that feels totally barren, usually. We did get several days of sunshine (even if the sun goes down on my street at 3:30 PM – it matters, in Seattle, how far up you are in how much light you get in a day) which felt like a nice respite. Several mornings I went out on my back porch and just stood in the freezing cold (36 yesterday morning) just to get a few moments of sunshine. It is supposed to help your mood. Here are a few more everyday things I thought were beautiful: a robin, back-to-back woodpeckers, apples at the Tonnemaker farm stand in Woodinville, Mt Baker at sunset.

Viburnum Flowers with Christmas Lights

A Pushcart Nom and an Acceptance

I had a reading this week with a Poemeleon-sponsored anthology called the Plague Papers, which connected ekphrastic poems to the experience of looking at museum art work online. I was surprised to find that they had nominated one of my poems, “Ode to Koons,” for a Pushcart Prize. The reading was really moving, with people connecting this very tough year with particular works of art. I encourage you to check it out, at least a few pieces – you might discover a new artist or poet.

I also got an acceptance from a beautiful new journal called The Chestnut Review, which I encourage you all to check out.

Our main Christmas tree

So that is our “looking on the bright side” of the literary world this week. Of course, anyone would be bummed by seven rejections in a week (I believe most of them came in the Monday after Thanksgiving,) and the expense and annoyance that comes with the failure of a major appliance, the internet and phone at the same time, plus the incessant ring of disaster in our ears of high levels of covid and coronavirus-related deaths in America, and the total failure of our government in the last year to contain it. It’s just that these days most of our coping mechanisms for annoyance sadness, disaster: getting together to celebrate with family, getting a coffee and commiserating with friends, even the simple pleasant act of going to the grocery store or bookstore – are out of reach. So maybe we should all start recording the beauty of everyday things. I’ll leave you with this shot of our Christmas tree, which we have been trying to decorate (in between disasters) all week. Love and light to you this December. Drink something hot – cider and hot chocolate and coffee. Watch a holiday film. Turn off the news for a day. I hope to be back with a better attitude next week.

My Poem, “The Wildness,” Up on Verse Daily Today

Hairy Woodpecker

A Poem, “The Wildness,” Up on Verse Daily Today

Thanks to Verse Daily who featured my poem, “The Wildness,” originally published in Cherry Tree, up at Verse Daily today.

http://www.versedaily.org/2020/thewildness.shtml

Here’s a sneak peek. Wishing you all a safe and peaceful holiday week. Stay home and give your loved ones a call to tell them you love them.

November Doldrums, Grieving a Loss and Moments of Light

Typewriter with red maple leaves

November Doldrums

It’s been a rough week. It started with me staying up all night with kitten Sylvia that required the emergency vet (okay now, but gave us quite a scare), continued with me being too sick (not covid, but a stomach and sinus infection) to get much work reading or writing done, and ended with the news that my maternal grandmother, after surviving covid-19 for two weeks, passed away today, just a few days short of her 96th birthday. This was my last surviving grandparent, and one who shared with me a love of literature – Poe, Hemingway and Faulkner were a few of her favorites, and in her youth she read voraciously. She lived in Missouri, which has some of the highest covid rates, and no one was able to visit her the last weeks of her life, because of covid.

I know people are chafing under travel restrictions during Thanksgiving, but remember that people like me – and my grandmother – are the people that need protection. Wear a mask, stay six feet apart, and stay home. Having to miss a Thanksgiving with family is much better than having to mourn a family member you can’t even have a funeral for, which is what I’m doing this week. No amount of pumpkin pie is worth that.

Sunshine in November, Seattle View from Kerry Park

Moments of Light

Even in the darkest times, there are moments of light. Most of the week has been cold – in the low forties – and rainy, but yesterday the temperature was above 50 and the sun was shining, and suddenly everything was beautiful – the last remaining leaves on the trees, the snow-capped mountains, the neighbor walking his dog.

Besides the emergency-levels of “real life” stress of this week, I also got a rejection from the NEA grant, two book rejections (though my manuscripts were semi-finalists, sigh) and several regular poetry rejections. When you don’t feel good and you’re wondering what the point of all your hard work is, it’s important to remember the sun will shine again, figuratively and metaphorically.

This coronavirus has made 2020 a very tough year for everyone. My grandmother is just one casualty of a pandemic that has killed a million people world-wide. Travel plans and curfews and shutdowns have impacted the economy, our quality of life, almost every part of it. So I’m hoping you have a safe, happy-as-possible Thanksgiving week, and remember it won’t always be the way it is right now. Light a light. Get outside in every moment of sunshine. Grieve the things that are lost, and hope that 2021 will be a better year for all of us.

A Poem Up at Verse Daily, Rough Week, And On Poets And Prizes

Red maple leaves

A Poem Up At Verse Daily Today – “They Are Waiting”

It’s been a rough week, so I’ll start with the good news. A poem of mine published in the latest issue of Boulevard, “They Are Waiting,” which I wrote when I was waiting for cancer scan news a few years ago, is featured today on Verse Daily. Thank you to Boulevard and Verse Daily!

Here’s a sneak peek:

Sunrise in November, Woodinville

A Rough Week in November

It’s been a bit of a rough week for us here in November. My 96-year-old maternal grandmother, Opal, tested positive for Covid and is in isolation at her nursing home. She lost her husband in January, so this has been a hard year for her (and for my mom) already. We are praying she makes it to her birthday at the end of the month. I’ve already sent her birthday card, and I’m just hoping it makes it in time. Even if we were in the same city, I could not see her. It’s a cruel time to be ill.

At the same time, I got hit with another pretty serious stomach infection, requiring massive antibiotics (and sometimes hospitalization and surgery,) so I’ll ask for your good thoughts for healing there as well. I definitely am trying to stay out of the hospital. Stressing about the election and rising covid rates, too. The November sunrise picture is to remind us, even on bad days, the rainy cold months, there is always a little beauty.

White Peacock, Zoo Lanterns

On Poets and Prizes

There was a very interesting article this week, “On Poets and Prizes,” by Juliana Spahr and Stephanie Young, at the ASAP journal. It talked about the fact that, though some of us might prefer to think of the poetry world as a meritocracy, it is mostly a function of a small “in-crowd” of Ivy League types giving prizes to their friends, and only their friends. The charts and graphs alone are worth a look. Data-driven poetry information. Since poetry receives so little attention in America – and so few sales – the poetry prize decides whether a writer is read – or ignored. And most of this is nepotistic – highly nepotistic. More than you thought, if you already thought it was.

It is hard, as I have posted the last two weeks on the blog, to make a living as a poet. If you did not come from a family with money, didn’t go to the “right” schools, never ran with the “right” poetry in-crowds, it’s going to be even tougher. I mourn having to say this, especially to younger poets with more enthusiasm and optimism than I had (I was always a little cynical.) If you don’t go to Iowa for your MFA, you don’t go to New York City and the right parties, you are probably never going to get the big prizes or the big fellowships. Which means, you probably won’t be read. The data presented in the article is fairly convincing.

But…it does happen – and I know people who it has happened for, who were lucky, who just on the merit of their work and their hustle, did make it. I am so happy to know that such poets exist.  Publishers, from time to time, present terrific work by people from “nowhere,” who don’t have money or go to prestigious schools, and their work finds not only an audience, but good reviews and accolades and yes, prizes. Am I likely to be one of the lucky ones? Are you? The odds, as the article makes clear, may not be in our favor. But there is something honorable about writing, publishing, continuing to offer the work to the world, isn’t there?

If we are Katniss Everdeen and the Poetry World is the Hunger Games, how do we start to break the game, the in-crowd, nepotistic, odd-are-never-in-our-favour  system? Do we want to? How do you choose which poetry books to read, or decide which book is good and worthy of your time? How do you choose which book to review?

I want to be hopeful. What is the message of hope I can find here? I admit to feeling a bit discouraged, poetry-wise, this week. I’m still waiting, for a publisher to pick up one of the two book manuscripts I’m circulating. A lot of living the life of poetry is waiting, isn’t it? I am wishing you the best this week.  Some good news. Some luck.