Lots to Celebrate Edition- New Poems up at the newly relaunched Shenandoah and SWWIM, Zoolights and Red Panda Cubs, Thanks to Escape Into Life for a Pushcart Nomination

Glenn and I amid barn-themed holiday decor

Lots to Celebrate Edition

Pushcart Nomination from Escape Into Life

It’s easy to get a little grumpy this time of year – holiday stress, trying to get things done, waking up to cold and dark. Sometimes I get awfully discouraged by the poetry world. But I hope you will join me in celebrating today. It is a good day to remember to be grateful.

First of all, thanks to Kathleen Kirk and Escape Into Life for nominating my poem “Blood Moon, Flare, Coyote” for a Pushcart Prize – and you can read all their Pushcart-nominated poems here. My friend Karen Weyant is up there with me! So excited.

Two New Poems Up at Shenandoah and SWWIM!

And a big thank you to SWWIM for publishing my poem, “Scar,” as today’s featured poem.

And after over a decade of submitting to Shenandoah, I have a poem in their newly relaunched issue. When Beth Staples, who recently took over the literary journal at Washington and Lee, sent me the e-mail a few months ago, I was in shock. A dream journal for me for sure, and happy to be part of the relaunch.

The poem is called “Introduction to Writer’s Block.” It’s also an extremely personal poem for me, as it describes trying to write poetry again after a severe MS flare hospitalized me last fall, and I was struggling with memory loss and aphasia, trying to literally find my words again. Anyway, so happy to be in the issue!

ZooLights and Baby Red Pandas at the Woodland Park Zoo

I mentioned in an earlier blog post how we’ve had a rare week of sun in usually gray and dark December here in Seattle, and we took advantage of it to go check out the Woodland Park Zoo’s new pair of female red panda cubs. It had been a long time since I’d seen red panda cubs, which are just about the most adorable (and fairly rare) animal on the planet. They will only be there for a few months. I spent about forty minutes in the freezing cold just gasping at the cuteness and taking about 150 pictures!

: Baby red panda face

: Baby red panda with another tail in view

: Proud and protective mom

Then, just as we were leaving, they switched on the “Zoo Lights” so we did a quick tour of those, too, after visiting the snow leopards. And whoops, another red panda in a hammock!

: Snow leopard mother and yearling

: Glenn and I at the Butterfly House

: Red panda in hammock

Today the morning is clear and cold again, Stellar jays darting in the trees, hummingbirds around our feeders. I am looking forward to seeing some writer and artist friends for “art dates” in the next two weeks. I am thankful for publishers who send out royalty checks (this time, thanks to Two Sylvias – they always send royalty checks right before the holidays, which seems a lucky time to get a check) and thankful for people who volunteer at our zoo to keep red pandas and snow leopards alive and healthy, thankful to all people who create art – and those who support art with their time and money. I am thankful for days I have enough energy to get up and go out of the house to experience the lucky world I have around me – flowers, trees, holiday lights – and thankful that this year I am not as sick as I was last year around this time. I am starting to think, in a hopeful way, about 2019. May it be a better year for all of us.

2018 so far: A Poem in Rogue Agent, New Year Zoo Lights, Luck and Poetry Fees, and Thinking About the New Year and New Poetry Blogs!

The new year surprised me on January 1 with a new issue of Rogue Agent, which had one of my poems from my new manuscript in it called “Self-Portrait as Radioactive Girl.” It’s a wonderful issue if you check out the whole thing.

So far in the new year, I’ve received two rejections and an acceptance already! I also bought Powerball tickets, something we only do one time a year. This made me muse of the subject of luck, money, and poetry. (My theory was, I had so much bad luck health-wise in the last year, that perhaps the universe would let me win the lottery? I mean, not the whole thing, but a couple of million, enough to pay off student loans, start a poetry charity, and buy my retired parents a house in WA state?) And here’s a sign, lucky or not – today the sun shone bright over Mt. Rainier, and I saw a coyote in the middle of a field, running in a circle, stopping, and running in the other direction. This was under the giant white mountain and bright blue sky in a field of green. If I were a painter…

The Millions had an interesting essay on the “pay to play” model of poetry submissions: https://themillions.com/2018/01/paying-to-play-on-solvency-and-submissions-fees-in-poetry-publishing.html. I also keep an Excel spreadsheet noting financial costs and gains from poetry – submission fees, of course, royalties, literary magazine payments, getting paid for the occasional class or reading. When I make money from poetry, I try to put money back into poetry. I want to support the literary community as much as I can. I spent some time at the end of the year subscribing to a few journals, as I do every year – I try to rotate the journals so I can support as many as possible. I buy a LOT of poetry books (although I get a decent number as review copies) because 1. I want to support my local stores that carry poetry and 2. I want to support small presses that publish poetry. But I do also support the idea of literary publishers, organizations and journals trying to raise money outside the small circle of poets that want to publish – by reaching out more, trying more ways to gain subscribers, maybe advertising? What do you think? I remember being poor enough that every book contest fee hurt. I feel that fees have gone way up since I started trying to publish work waaay back in 2001-2.

We also decided to take a brief spur of energy to go out on the last day of the Woodland Park Zoo Lights show under the supermoon on New Year’s Day. It was very cold – I had on earmuffs, gloves, and a heavy coat, Ugg boots and I was still freezing after about thirty minutes (I know you Northeasterners are having killer storms, but thirty degrees is very cold for Seattle!)

: New Year Supermoon over Woodland Park Zoolights

: Me with Woodland Park zoo’s beautiful carousel

: New Year’s Supermoon

: Butterfly house lights at the zoo

The poetry blogs are rolling again, and it’s a wonderful way to get to know more about some of your favorite writers! Donna Vorreyer has a wonderful list of poets who have joined up and proposed at least weekly blog posts here. Reading poetry blogs will definitely make you feel better than reading the news (oh my God, are we going to die in a nuclear war? No, don’t read the news…) and maybe think about participating!