Wondermachine

I'm Back

After a five month hiatus I'm back to blogging.  So much has changed.  It's surprising it's taken me so long to get back to this.  I've had this blog in one way or another for over six years.  I first hosted it on my own website and then moved over to typepad. 

Over the years the emphasis has changed as my interests have.  There was a huge knitting and crafting period while I was involved with my friend Michael with MenKnit.net (now sadly shuttered).  Then there were the political campaigns we were involved in.  Then last year I switched over to Facebook and that's taken a lot of my posting time.  I do post there all the time but I was missing the blog.  I miss the way in which a blog serves as a record.  It may not have the instantaneous effect of Facebook but it does have a more stationary element that one can revisit.  My interest remain mostly the same.  I'm doing more poetry, I'm still doing a lot of photography.   I'm still interested in architecture and sculpture.  I'm still loving sketching and watercolor.  I do occasional gardening but not as much as I'd like.

Sadly for those not connected to facebook, we lost our beloved pooch Roofus this Winter.  It was without doubt one of the saddest periods of my life.  He made me more human.  I know that I'm still dealing with his loss in many ways.  Today we would've celebrated his birthday.  The year after a death is in many ways a year without the annual celebrations of their life.

But for now I'm back and hope to post more here.  Especially photographs from adventures and travels.  If you're still connected to this blog enough to have read this, please let me know what you think.

The new photo on the blogbar is from a beautiful building I saw in Denver, Colorado last month.  I was in town for the AWP conference.  Had a great time and met a lot of wonderful people.

15 states in 15 days

How's that for a hiatus?  Miss me?  Forget me?

We rolled in last night from a pretty stunning fifteen-day circular road trip.  We visited FIFTEEN STATES in FIFTEEN DAYS!!  That's gotta be some kind of record.

We headed South to visit my kinfolk in Texas and instead of doing the two day grueling speedmarch through the South, we took our time, especially on the way back to see some of the country we hadn't seen before. 

It was a relaxing way to go and a fulfilling one courtesy of the good people at Road Food and Roadside America -- two indispensible guides to any road trip.  Hope to post all the pictures to flickr soon but the highlights of the road trip (in no particular order):

- Birmingham, Alabama's amazing art deco downtown -- truly a trove of architecture that has miraculously survived demolition and 1960s and 70s "experiments"

It's like a time capsule and a beautiful one at that. (added points for the discovery of Buffalo Rock ginger ale -- a local throat burning brew since 1901!)

- Also a highlight that day was seeing the world's largest cast iron statue when we visited Birmingham's enormous and incredibly homoerotic Vulcan statue.  It towers over the city on top of a huge limestone column.  He wears a giant apron in front but is "all commando" from behind.

- partying at the family reunion underneath my uncle's Christmas light spectaculaire (which I'm sure can be seen from orbit). 

There was much salsa music and honky tonk rancheros and two-stepping to be had.  Oh and much home-made sangria embibing and cuban pernil eating too.  Roofus approved of the pernil.

I knew I was back in Texas when the police showed up and it wasn't for our party but a domestic dispute across the street.

- the creepy jaw-dropping schlockiness of the Precious Moments Chapel in Carthage, Missouri. 

Words simply cannot describe the place.  Having Anne Murray's Christmas warblings piped from the outdoor speakers didn't help any.  It simply has to be seen to be believed.  But I'm sure it's an economic boom to the town of Carthage -- certainly more than their bronze sculpture of Marlon Perkins (which we did not visit in case you're wondering.

- Visiting the giant plaster casts of James Earle Fraser's End of the Trail and Abraham Lincoln sculptures at Oklahoma City's National Cowboy Museum.  These works are amazing and certainly solidify my love of Fraser's work and why I consider him the finest artist to have left his sculptural mark on DC.  It was nice to see works that are in other areas.  We saw his seated Franklin a few days later in Springfield, Illinois.  While here we also fell in love with the work of the artists Charles Russell and James Reynolds.

Samping perhaps the world's best pies at Rolla, Missouri's "A Slice of Pie."  The Dixie pie was perhaps my favorite (think Pecan pie made with walnuts and chocolate chips) and the key lime a close second.  I guess this place deserves credit (?) for giving me one thing called "Dixie" I like.  Wait.  I like Dixie Carter too.  Make that a second thing named Dixie I like.  {UPDATE: Pete reminds me of the Dixie Chicks.  Which I like as well.  So three things.  Feel free to write in with anything else named Dixie I may have forgotten I like}

Befriending the folk artist and sculptor Ralph Doss Lanning in Republic, Missouri was a serious treat.  Hell, it was a fantastic event!  We'd stopped to visit his sculpture garden and he walked out and started talking with me.  He showed me his home and his studio and then gave us a tour of his sculpture garden which was pretty amazing.  He also gave me a great little doll he'd made.  It road on the dashboard for the rest of the trip as a lucky road charm.

We also had a great time on our whirlwind tour of visiting and photographing every Abraham Lincoln Sculpture in Springfield, Illinois.  And I do mean every.  Springfield was pretty dead given that the state government was out on holiday so we had the city and all the historical sites to ourselves.  The Lincoln Tomb outside the city was stunning.  A very elaborate monument that holds Lincoln's body along with the bodies of Mary Todd Lincoln and their sons (excepting Robert Todd Lincoln who's buried here at Arlington Cemetery).

Throwing shoes at The Bush Pinata at our friends' New Year's Eve party in Indianapolis, Indiana (sadly no pictures of that blessedly cathartic event)

You know you've had a great trip when you make a list and know you've left off some good stuff.  Oh the Dolly Parton statue in Pigeon Forge! The Recycling Red Devil statue in Corpus Christi!  The giant chicken outside Gonzales in Texas!  The Snoopy milk gallon jug luminarias!! Oh and all those giant roadside crosses!  So many and all aluminum sided!! And all the muffler men!  Muffler men cowboys and GI's! So much roadside and so little time!!!

Anyway, we're still unpacking (figuratively, emotionally and physically) from being on the road and in a car for so long.  Glad to be home (Roofus most of all -- although he seemed rather taken with the poshness of one La Quinta we stayed at in Missouri) and ready for the new year.

Say hello if you're even still visiting after so long an absence.  Hope you are all well!

PrObama PA, & the Lafayette Park Cleanse

What an amazing week it's been.  Pete and I spent the last few days doing Get Out The Vote work for the Obama campaign in Pennsylvania. We'd spent Saturday in Virginia -- in the rural wilds of Fauquier County in a mostly McCain voting area.  Pennsylvania was a radical change.  We volunteered in Lancaster where the mood was decidedly prObama (if no one else has done so, I hereby lay claim to this portmanteau ).   The people we met going door to door were all happy to see us.  We were knocking on doors and speaking with people on Tuesday morning, reminding them of where to vote and putting up doorknockers (you can see me holding up the special election day doorhangers the campaign came up with in the photo at left).  The mood was so up and affirming.  It's hard to believe that it's been almost a year since the first caucus in Iowa.  I had to look up the essay on this blog titled "Iowa and Monumental Radio", in which I shared my reasons for supporting Obama all those months ago (although to be honest it feels like years ago).  Reading it just now I am struck with how much I feel more committed to the reasoning in that piece and even more elated that the majority of the country did the right thing.  Certainly Obama's campaign itself was an indication of the brilliance of our next president. Pete and I were stunned with the quality and professionalism (not to mention the graphic style) of the effort.  There are now those theorizing that Obama may have faked McCain out so the Republicans would pour all their last millions in the vain effort to catch PA.  Our on -the-ground sense was that, with the exception of a few lawn signs, there was NO SIGN of a McCain/Palin campaign in the area we were in.  It's a heavily Republican county and McCain did carry it -- but this time he carried it with single digits (compared to Bush's '04 double digit victory) and it was all those added Obama votes in Republican parts of the state that added up to a crushing defeat for McCain.  He poured what little he had left in his lying TV ads and even there Obama swamped him.

If I have any critique for the Obama campaign I saw in PA is that they could've used more Spanish speaking volunteers.  Lancaster has a HUGE Puerto Rican community and I was the only Spanish speaker I met in that office.  Many, many phone calls were half-broken conversations that garnered little effect I suppose.  I was  delighted to see that Obama won HUGE among Latinos.  The Bush madness has gotten out of the system.  We can thank the rabid racism of Republican anti-immigration zealotry for ending that misbegotten courtship.

Anyway, after two days in PA we drove back the afternoon of election day arriving in time for the first electoral results.  A few friends and neighbors joined us as we switched between MSNBC and CNN -- and after Obama's win FIXed News, just to see their stunned reaction (humorously illustrated in the clip below).

When Ohio was called early for Obama we all knew it was over.  But we waited and cheered through every Blue state that came in.  This is when I quipped that if Obama won North Carolina (which he did) then someone should be standing by in Yorba Linda, California with a gold medal to award Richard Nixon's corpse for its Olympics-caliber gymnastics routine -- the only possible response to a Black Democrat named Barack Hussein Obama destroying Tricky Dick's cynical Southern Strategy.

We waited for Obama's victory speech.  It was moving to see those huge crowds and to see our new first family.  The whole thing a capper to the amazing evening -- or so we thought.  We'd long planned to go down to the White House that evening to join in on the party and around 1:30 AM(!) we trudged down.  The mood was EUPHORIC!  To quote Whitman, it was a mass of "beautiful curious laughing flesh" dancing and singing for the great victory.  I have never witnessed something like that in Washington.  Whole intersections in different parts of the city crowded with people dancing like those old photos of Armistice Day.

It's hard to say what part of the country has suffered more during the Bush years.  I could make a STRONG case for Washington, DC.  After all, we were the area of the country that LEAST supported this administration in the last two elections; yet we had to harbor this disgusting, malicious, duplicitous, contagion of a presidency.  We also had to be the recipient of all the bile and animus flung from near and far ("all that blah blah in Washington", "those people in Washington").  All this due to the decisions made by people elected from afar.  As I've written before it is a daily near-psychic wound perpetrated on perhaps the least responsible citizens (half citizens at that!).  Given all of that, the exuberance made sense.  As I theorized to friends, it was as if Washington, DC had suffered a horrible stomach infection for the last 8 years (from a rancid meal force fed by the rest of the country) and on Tuesday night we purged with abandon.  We cleansed our system by dancing and singing and cheering in Lafayette Park and Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan and U Street.  It is a beautiful memory I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

If you haven't had a chance to read it yet, please read Frank Rich's AMAZING column about this election: "It Still Felt Good the Morning After."  It's a marvelous summation of the campaign and the importance of what has just occured.  Some highlights from this must read:

"Dawn also brought the realization that we were at last emerging from an abusive relationship with our country’s 21st-century leaders. The festive scenes of liberation that Dick Cheney had once imagined for Iraq were finally taking place — in cities all over America."

"The actual real America is everywhere. It is the America that has been in shell shock since the aftermath of 9/11, when our government wielded a brutal attack by terrorists as a club to ratchet up our fears, betray our deepest constitutional values and turn Americans against one another in the name of “patriotism.” What we started to remember the morning after Election Day was what we had forgotten over the past eight years, as our abusive relationship with the Bush administration and its press enablers dragged on: That’s not who we are."

Birthday thoughts

So today's my birthday. I'm feeling pretty good about things in general. Worried about the election, but feeling rather hopeful and I'm looking forward to an enjoyable debate this evening between Joe Biden and Sarah "In What Respect Charlie?" Palin.

I recall that last year what I really wanted in the new year was the publication of a book of my poems. Thankfully that desire has been fulfilled with the publication last month of my first book. Still hard to believe but gratifying beyond words. So for that alone I am thankful. I feel fortunate to have the love of friends and family and of the man I love so dearly. So things are quite nice at 41.

I happen to share the day with some other figures who I revere or admire. It's a good day. Others born on this day include Nat Turner, Wallace Stevens, Don McLean, Avery Brooks, Annie Leibovitz, Sting, Lorraine Bracco, Robbie Nevil. While I don't place a lot of stock on something so coincidental, I have always loved that I share the day with two historic figures that lend me some kind of balance (or so it seems to me). Fitting that I post two youtube clips about these gems, Gandhi and Groucho. Then after that a few other salient figures concerning this day. Enjoy!

Mahatma Gandhi:

Groucho Marx:

Thurgood Marshall (who was sworn in to the Supreme Court on the day I was born):

And a listen to Don McLean's "American Pie" just for grins.

Wallace Stevens' To An Old Philosopher (this isn't Stevens but someone reading the poem quite nicely):

Vacay to the 19th Century

So last night we home alone.  Our housemate Jason was at school for a parent/teacher night.  Pete and I were sitting down apres dinner watching some politically related stuff online (have you seen Sarah Silverman's hysterical "Great Schlep" video?:)

Then the power went out.  It had been raining all afternoon and early evening but not hard.  Just like a consistent heavy drizzle.  The power would flicker on for a few seconds then we'd hear this hard BRRXXZHZHZH!!!  and then cut out again.  Again and again this happened.  Then we reached for the candles.

Turned out the transformer at the end of the block had gone kabloey and was sparking like crazy (hence the BRXXZHZHZH!! sounds everytime it tried coming on again).   Pete and I left the dogs inside and went to investigate.  A lot of neighbors were out as well checking out the goingson.  The power came back on at one point while we were out.  So when we finally got back from our scout, Pete turned out all the candles we'd lit (we luh-uVV us some candleage) and we carried on with dinner.

A few minutes later the power went off for the night and we were transported to the 19th century for the evening.  All in all not a bad thing to happen.  A few thoughts:

• We live in the city but its astonishing to actually hear the neighborhood in silence.  We could still hear the metro station three blocks away as the trains rolled in quietly.
• Is this a glimpse of the horrible state of our nation's infrastructure I keep reading about?  How our electrical grid is so decrepit and prone to serious outages that may effect us beyond one night's romantic off-the-grid vacation?
• The city is beautiful in darkness.  Nothing but the sound of gentle rain on the sills.
• If it were not raining we'd be outside gazing at the stars.

Sometime in the middle of the night the power returned.  I got up in the middle of the night and turned off the one hall light that had been left switched on.  We were back in the 21st century (or in the electric vestiges of the 20th).

Overheard in the house this morning:

Me:  "Tell your students they have to be able to spell whatever they throw at you."

Jason:  "Unfortunately they can spell 'desk.'"

After our roommate Jason had an encyclopedia thrown at him by one of his students in class yesterday.

Great Night!! Great News!!

Last night I had the special pleasure of reading with two poets I greatly admire.  Francisco Aragon, Gregg Shapiro and I were invited to read at the Intersections Poetry Series at Honfleur Gallery.  The inimitable Fred Joiner hosts that wonderful series and I'd wanted to read there ever since I'd heard Kim Roberts and Hiram Larew read there last year.  There was a great turnout for the reading in that lovely gallery space on Good Hope avenue. 

We went in alpha order and I was delighted to hear Francisco Aragon read a number of poems from his collection Puerta del Sol.  His poems are a wonderful evocation of Madrid.  But I was keenly interested in the last poem he read which was a translation of his.  He's translating Ruben Dario's work!!  I didn't have a chance to talk with him about it but I'm intrigued to hear more about his working with this modernist master's poetry.  I believe this is Francisco's second reading in the area, but I hope to hear more of him.

Gregg read next from his book Protection which Gival Press put out.  I'd heard Gregg read from this wonderful collection last year at the Busboys in Shirlington earlier in the year and this night was another rare opportunity to hear the poet read his own work again.  His work features a lot of dialogue which I'm always intrigued by (something I don't do in mine so I'm always intrigued by people who can pull it off).  His book is set up in three geographic sections based on the three places he's lived (Boston, DC and Chicago) and he read from all those periods.  He ended with a poem which just knocked my socks off.  I believe the title was something like "in the city where I am missing you" and he wrote it for his partner.  Just a beautiful evocative poem.  Wouldn't mind seeing that in print somewhere.

I went last thanks to my last name being at the end of the alphabet but I didn't mind.  I'd been a bit nervous as I was reading a number of new works.  But I had the whole thing planned out -- which poems I'd read, in which order.  And then things got a bit mixed up.  I was reading from a big stack of pages clipped together (more on that later) and though I'd sorted my order, while I was reading I must've been done a bit more unintentional sorting.  Happens.  But there were a few poems I was going toward for progression and I simply couldn't find them.  But it didn't seem to matter.  I would've read a bit more and am sad I didn't except I just couldn't find those poems that would lead me to the end I'd planned.  So... I decided to end on a note I wanted rather then end awkwardly with a tone somewhere in between.  Does this make sense?

When I read I do want there to be a progression.  And while I think it's possible for serendipity to intercede (as it did last night) I do want to end on, if not a good note, then at least the note I wanted to leave an audience with.  I think that there's a narrative arc to a reading over and above the individual poems.  I know I haven't written much about what my process is when I read.  Frankly I haven't written much about my readings at all.  But I do think you have a responsibility to your readers to pay attention to the effect poems can have on them and maybe move them back and forth a bit from where they expect.

Anyway, the result of the planned and the unforeseen was that I ended up starting with three poems that were rather serious and felt (at least to me although I've been told they didn't come across that way) as intense and "heavy."  I meant them as incantations or even invocations of a part.  They were also very much "gay poems" or at least explicitly so.  Seeing as I was reading with two other poets who were also Gay in front of an audience which was mostly (my firm guess here) not Gay, I wanted to establish the space by reading work that is not often heard.  At least that was my thinking.  I felt proud of those three poems put together like that.  Reading a love poem seems very vulnerable.  I know it shouldn't be but it feels that way and I know that love poems are so overdone that it becomes a cliche of sorts.  But I didn't want to run away from that either.  I wanted to own them and I wanted to place them in context.  Historical and social context.

Reading those first three felt like giving myself permission to speak and then allowed me to read work that was more playful and pleasing to a crowd.  That was my thinking.

Was I overthinking?  Well perhaps, but I was also reading from that big stack of pages which were (and are) my new book.

Huh?!?  New Book?  What new book? 

Well, that's the "Great News!!" in the title.  After a few months of biding my time and a lot of work and preparation I'm very proud to announce my first book of poetry will be published next month.  The Space Between Our Danger And Delight is a collection of old and newer work (certainly all new in book form).  It collects a number of poems that have appeared in journals and other publications.  I can't express how great it felt to read from that manuscript and to know that I'd soon be reading from the book itself.  It is a full length book of poetry and I have to say the whole process around the book has been extremely illuminating. 

I feel a deep sense of gratitude about the book and especially to two men in my life who have pushed me to finish it.  Pete, the love of my life who has really supported me the last few years as I've sought to dedicate myself to writing and to poetry.  Michael, my confrere in poetry publishing really lit the fire for me to finish a manuscript and to wrestle with it.  I honestly didn't know if I had a book of poems or felt I was a very long way from being there.  He persevered and so I persevered.  The artistic process is very solitary but it doesn't occur in a vacuum.  I also feel very fortunate to be surrounded by a circle of writers artists and friends who have given me support and an example.  As well as a deep sense of gratitude I feel a deep sense of disbelief.  The kind of head-shaking, "Is this really happening?" kind of feeling.  I have had the opportunity to be on the other side of this equation as an editor and a publisher but as a writer it's a singular feeling of being held aloft at a moment of vulnerability.

Well, at the risk of babbling, I'm in a place of great pleasure.  Strangely dealing with the after effects of the flu it's a place of great pleasure.  The reading last night was such a reifying experience for me as the book prepares to take flight on its own.  I'm hoping to do readings for the book during the next year so maybe I'll be able to read to you in person.

Miraculo!!

He reappears!

Last you saw me here I was in Buffalo, New York and enjoying the scenic wonders of Niagara Falls.  I was doing a pretty good job of posting daily updates with added photos to my flickr page.  Thanks to everyone who posted comments on the zany stuff along the way to Buffalo.

That was all before the fourth of July when I fell ill and spent the entire day (felt like two actually) inside a small motel room in delirium and spot cold congestion.  It was an odd day to say the least.  I had the history channel playing on the motel room television on the lowest volume setting.  So throughout the day I'd wake up to their marathon fourth of July showing of "The REVOLUTION!" miniseries. 

The day went something like this (blurry recap):

sleep ache sleep cough ache wake::::::

John Adams yelling in Philadelphia...

sleep snort ache turn cough tumble:::::

George Washington freezing in Valley Forge, his soldiers boiling grass to eat

sleep snort ache sneeze turn wake::::::

Ben Franklin breaks with his son over the war/ son rats out Ben to the British

sleep snort sleep ache cough::::::

Cornwallis fighting

"GOOD LORD!!  When is this war gonna be over?!?!?!"

I slept through the end of the thing but fortunately I know how it ended.

Fortunately the solid day spent in bed being harangued by the hardships of the "founding" fathers was enough to help me recup enough to do the LONGGG drive home from Niagara Falls.  Fortunately Pete had shown up the day before I got sick (he and Kim did the Canadian side of the Falls the day I was sick) and so he was able to help drive on the way back.  I was popping Dayquil the entire way back those two days and we stopped at some Antique Shops, the Jello Museum (a Kim must do) in LeRoy, New York and the Corning Glass Museum in Corning, New York. 

We also spent a few hours tracking down a lovely little camping spot from Pete's childhood in the Grand Canyon of Pennsylvania near Cedar Run.  A lovely spot called Fahneystock and it was a singular delight to see Pete so alive with joy at having found this place of sweet childhood memory.  He was simply giddy!  He even stripped down to swimtrunks and jumped from this diving ledge into the swimming hole.  Definitely worth the side trip.

We spent our last night of the trip at the cabin and it was great to see Pete's folks.  Sad that it was a short visit as we had to get back the next morning.  But it's always worth it to end a trip with a night at the cabin. 

We got back Monday, although with the sick stuff it was a few days before I actually felt up to snuff.  I spent a few days on a previous commitment I'd made to the DC Commission of the Arts and the week just flew away.  Finally feeling back in the loop.

Hope to post the rest of the pictures from the trip.  The new tagbar on my blog here is a detail from the beautiful art-deco sunburst skylight at the stunning Buffalo City Hall.

I have some exciting news to report about upcoming readings I'll be doing in the area and down South.  Things are a brewing!

Pittsburgh Bollywood

As you read this I'm probably north of Pittsburgh and making my way to Buffalo and the Niagara Falls.  Nice to have a week to wander around with my friend Kim and Pete, who'll join us for the Fourth at the Falls.  I know that I've been dreadful a blogger the last month or so.  Apathy and overwhelming feeling.  Bad excuses but so they go.  I hope to post photos to the Flickr page from the trip.  Maybe if I just post one great picture that'll be enough for you my readers to forgive my intransigence.

Till that time, I give you a pretty entertaining Bollywood video that someone has been kind enough to phonetically translate in a way that transforms it into a quite good nonsense poem.

It's All Science

Sorry I've been so out of it.  I've been busy writing a lot of poetry of late.  My friend Kim was gone in France, my friend Bo was gone in California and I just used the time to get through a lot of writing.  But I do have a lot to announce in the next few days including two new readings in the near future.

But for now enjoy this pretty funny Science clip.  Ingenious and true.

Ankle & Poem Published

I want to thank everyone who contacted me about the ankle.  It's still on the mend.  Not a lot of pain unless it's turned oddly (which of course I'm doing everything not to do).  It's mostly a tiring hassle.  I have to have my left leg bandaged and raised all of the time and have to remind myself all the time.  I've taken to lying down a few times a day with my leg raised above the heart (which is what they recommend).  It makes reading easy but working on the computer tiring and problematic (I have my right leg halfway under the desk and my left leg sticking out to the side).  My right leg has been taxed having to do all of the work of the left leg.

I did hear from a neighbor whose husband is also dealing with a messed up ankle.  Except in his case it involved a bone that had died! I'd never heard of that happening!  They had to inject bone marrow from another part of his body and did surgery and it's a verrry long convalescence.  So, it made me very fortunate that my situation wasn't as bad.

On Saturday I did go out with my friend Michael to the Bethesda Writers Festival where the little poetry press I run with Michael, VRZHU Press, had a table.  It was sponsored by the Writers Center.  I had turned down the offer to go with, but then realized I was basically going to be sitting down and I could either do that here or there, so I decided to go for it.  While it was fun hanging out with Michael and I did run into a few folks I knew, Richard Peabody from Paycock Press and Gargoyle, and Patric Pepper from Pond Road Press, the turnout was abysmally low.  We definitely would do the festival next year as there was very little turnout and most of the time more people sitting at tables then walking among them.  Most folks walked by, saw that it was a poetry press and silently walked on.  It seemed like many just stumbled over from the flea market a block away.  The Writers Center is in the midst of a transition and the turnout at this event evidenced the perilous state of this 20+ year old organization.  Hope things rectify.

It was a glorious day so it was nice to be outside, even if under a big old tent.

In the poetry front I'm VERY happy to announce the publication of one of my poems in a forthcoming book of poems about our relationship with Dogs.  It's titled Dog Blessings and it will be out in the Fall. 

Last Fall I'd submitted three poems and later received a letter that they'd retained one for possible publishing.  Then last week June Cotner, the editor of the collection, sent me word that she wanted to print my poem.

I have to say I'm pretty happy about this as the publication is through a mainstream press and in a way it puts my poetry in front of a lot of eyes that would not usually read it.  The interesting thing is I sent in three poems and then one she chose was a new one that I had finished and polished for the submission.  The other two poems are favorites of mine, ones I've read at readings before, but it was great to have a new poem accepted.  I can't post the poem here of course, but the title is "The Nature of His Knowing."  I'll put word out when the book is out.  I'd certainly love to hear from folks.  I'm getting a copy of the book myself and am looking forward to seeing it when it arrives.

The topic for the issue was "Ancestors" and featured a cover I'm particularly proud of.  It features the portraits of a number of Gay and proto-Gay writers and activists from the past -- now "ancestors" of course. 

The issue includes a real mix of submissions from our writers and two interviews with folks we were fascinated with.  There's one interview with Steven Solberg, who's working on a documentary about Gay Elders and Aging and an interview with former Clinton gay friend and politico David Mixner (who endorsed Obama this year). 

Subscribers should be receiving their copies in the next few days.

Read excerpts here. 

I'm in the midst of proofreading a new book we're putting out through White Crane Press and also trying to get my own poems out for publication and in manuscript form.

Tomorrow is the Pennsylvania primary and I was glad that Pete's parents had a chance to catch Barack Obama when he came through Lancaster at his whistlestop tour.  They said that thousands came out to seem him at the train station.  Very exciting stuff.  But then again, the media's been very clear that it's not about excitement this year.  No no.  There are more important things to talk about.  Like flagpins and such.  To that end, and in their honor I leave you with this bit from The Onion: