Spilled Honey

No use crying over spilled milk, they say. But what about honey? Today was an unlucky Friday the 13th for a truckdriver around here, whose semi rolled over, spilling its cargo of honey.

But some of us were luckier. I got to see my mom in a play tonight, drinking hard lemonade and threatening to parade around naked as a jaybird. Got to see an old friend, playwright Doug Post, who had come down to Normal from Chicago, to speak about playwrighting as the final judge in Heartland Theatre's New Plays from the Heartland event. Got to see lots of fine writing and marvelous acting + the throwing of vegetables onstage. It was sold out tonight, and I think they have only 8 seats left for tomorrow.

And I am lucky to be up today in Tampa Review Online--with the fabulous nickname TRON! My poems "Undertow" and "Renewal of Vows" are presented with the paintings that inspired them. These are both poems I had faith in, sending them out patiently till they could find the right home. I have revised them gradually over time, trying to get just the right mood, tone, and detailed rendering of the painting through the eyes and voice of a speaker at a certain emotional moment (or layered moment) in time.

I'm lucky the poems found the right home, and doubly lucky to see them posted just as I was pondering poet Molly Spencer's blog entry on the patience and persistence of sending work out to relentless rejection...and how to handle that. So good luck and moral support to Molly!

Great Poems

The new issue of Poetry East has arrived (Numbers 74 & 75, Spring 2012): Great Poems. It's got Matthew Arnold in it, William Blake, Emily Bronte, Emily Dickinson, Gerard Manley Hopkins, Helen Hunt Jackson, John Milton, Christina Rosetti, Shelley, Keats, Wordsworth, Yeats, and, of course, Shakespeare, and a bunch of others.

Great Poems: with commentaries by contemporary poets

Holy moly, I'm a contemporary poet!

I provide a commentary on Emily Dickinson's poem that begins, "I tie my Hat--I crease my Shawl--." I'm in there with Claudia Emerson (also with a Dickinson poem), Linda Pastan, Jack Ridl, Michael Hettich, Patiann Rogers, Andrea Potos, Jack Grapes, Joanne Lowery, Kelly Cherry, and other contemporary poets who were deeply affected by great poems of the past. Wooee!

And we're all in there with Rembrandt, paintings (in color!) and etchings. This is a fantabulous issue!!

This is a great teaching issue, whether in a classroom, small poetry workshop, or on your own. Wooee! I cannot wait to read this through and through and find out what everyone else loves. 

My commentary, which refers to Emily's grief at the loss of her young nephew, Gilbert, is across from Rembrandt's etching, Youth Surprised by Death. That's the kind of care in arrangement that editor Richard Jones takes with each issue of Poetry East.

Did I say, "Wooee!"?


Thanks to Wikipedia for these public domain self-portraits of Rembrandt in youth, middle age, and the year he died.

A Berry, Berry Good Day

Yes, I am having a berry, berry good day, thanks to these Raspberries in a Cup with Blackberries, by Jonathan Koch. I did not eat any, since they are made of paint, but I did have actual cherries for breakfast.

And yesterday, I watered the actual raspberries in the back corner of the yard. They are surviving.

I have been working outside on a long-term freelance editing project than can be done at a table in the shade. I have been moving forward at a slow, intuitive pace with various other writing projects.

And I had a poem acceptance yesterday--yay!--that balanced the rejection that started the week. This journal accepted the one poem that was simultaneously submitted, so I had to withdraw it from the other place, which was prompt and friendly and congratulatory in responding to my immediate notification, which is all good!

Tonight, I will visit with friends again to remember and gently mourn Phyllis. And drink cosmopolitans.

The Case of the Missing Milk

I'm hungry! Note to Self: eat lunch. Do not go grocery shopping while hungry. Besides, Self, you went grocery shopping yesterday. Twice, because you forgot the milk, a mainstay. So you went back, late at night, to get some, so it would be there for breakfast. You went only to get milk, remember?!

Shift to summary/dialogue/first person narration:

So, last night, I went out to get the milk I forgot to get earlier, and the store was wonderfully empty, the floors shiny and clean, the big buffer machine going, and when I got to the cashier, there was just one guy getting a couple things and writing a check for them, getting a little cash, and he had a theatre shirt--Les Miserables, going on locally--and I asked about his show.

Actor Guy:  Oh, I'm in Cats at Miller Park.  I'm wearing this because I saw it last night and bought the shirt.

Me: How was it?

Actor Guy: Good! One more weekend. And come see Cats later this summer!

Me: (nodding in a positive yet indeterminate fashion) I've never seen Cats!

Note to you, the reader: Actor Guy is someone I have chatted with, in passing, at some other time, but I don't know his name. At the moment. Very nice guy. He will be playing Old Deuteronomy, and now I really want to see Cats, for the first time. I have listened to the songs many times. Sometimes I play songs from Cats on the piano. Oh, wait, maybe I have seen Cats. The movie. I have a feeling I fell asleep, like a contented cat, or like me, watching a movie.

Back to the grocery store, picking up dialogue in mid-conversation with Cashier, as Actor Guy has left:

Me: I bet I have that penny.

Cashier and Bagger ad lib about singing and dancing. Cashier hands Me my change, all paper money, and I put it away, becoming vaguely flummoxed by math challenge, as I was also expecting fifty cents, after that penny business. (Isn't Penny a character in a play? Yes! You Can't Take it With You!  Played by Rondi Reed at Steppenwolf, when I was Alice, the normal one! Get it? The NORMAL one.) Bagger and Cashier, though not present in my head, understand exactly, and hand over fifty cents from the change chute, and commiserate about change chutes and their own tendency to leave change behind in them.

Me: I'm just glad I remembered the milk. I forgot it earlier.

Bagger:  (genially) Don't forget your milk!

Me: (after a slight pause) Where is it?

In the movie made from this blog entry, the ensuing will be played in fast motion, with wacky music, in that jerky way of the old silent films. Bagger runs outside, yelling and waving her arms at Actor Guy, while Me follows, vaguely flummoxed again but perfectly cheerful. In the parking lot, Old Deuteronomy skitters out from under a row of shopping carts and runs quickly for the next safe place and/or mouse.  Actor Guy stops at his car, turns, looks at his hands, and comes back toward the store, while Me walks toward him. Actor Guy hands over a milk jug.

Me: This proves you are in Cats.

Actor Guy: Milk is not good for cats.

Whistling Maid, Cackling Hen

The forget-me-nots and blue lobelia are blooming on this Blue Monday that is blissfully cool compared to last week: 20 degrees cooler + blue sky. Time for the 100 Rejections recap/tally, as the morning began with an email rejection, but of the nice sort, the "close, send again" sort!

Since September 1, when this tally began, I've sent out 101 official submissions, had 49 rejections, and 28 acceptances (several already published, thanks to the comparative speed of online publications). I see I am only halfway there if I plan to get 100 rejections by September 1, 2012. Ack!

It's been a great summer for print issues: SRPR (Spoon River Poetry Review) and Nimrod arrived recently; still awaiting Slipstream, among others. Likewise, recent online publications include Hobble Creek Review* and Menacing Hedge, with Poemeleon pending, among others. So I feel active even in stasis, which aids patience. And the near misses are good, and there have been a few withdrawals, due to simultaneous submissions, a nice opportunity for poets these days.

*Notice the new call for submissions at Hobble Creek, re: Gulf Coast issue. More about that, from the editors, here.

And this morning, able to sit outside again, I drafted a poem at the picnic table, and designed next week's poetry workshop, creating assignments based on poems from Whistling Past the Graveyard, by Kristin Berkey-Abbott. Find out more about her here, but don't click the book cover, as it takes you to a business site in Japanese. Ack! Have I just clicked on a virus?

She's the whistling maid. I'm the (c)ack(l)ing hen. For a Superior Cackling Hen, click here (Bourbon Tabernacle Choir CD). For more on chickens, click here. Thanks to Andrei Niemimaki for the happy couple above. Ack! This has officially become a Random Coinciday.