This post is about something exciting to me at the same time that it is sad. Gingerbread House Editor Christine Butterworth-McDermott has interviewed me in the new issue up today. You can read it here:
Gingerbread House Lit Mag, with its emphasis on fairy tale-inspired literature, is one of my very favorite journals. Very sadly, I must say that this is the final issue of GH! Butterworth-McDermott will go on to do exciting things in the literary and artistic worlds (she’s an artist as well as a poet/writer), but this feels like the end of an era.
Please check out the whole gorgeous issue through the link above.
What fun to be interviewed by poet Millicent Borges Accardi, author of the new Quarantine Highway, for the beautiful CutBank Literary Magazine. Her questions really made me think about my life, and in the process, I discovered things about myself. You might, too!
May your holidays be wonderful–or if they are a difficult time for you, at least, tolerable.
Yesterday I made latkes and fried ricotta balls with vanilla caramel syrup (a gluten free choice instead of sufganiyot/doughnuts).
A little update on Perry: he had another test come back with more info, so he’s now on a long-term antibiotic and a different probiotic. Then we wait for the echocardiogram two days after Christmas to see how to proceed. Another cat note: Lily got through the barricade twice yesterday and made her way to Sloopy Anne to try to cause trouble. But the very tall cat tree I searched for weeks ago paid off. We have it in the middle of the bedroom, and Sloopy climbed to the highest perch while Lily looked up at her with confusion. (hehehe)
Thank you, Elaine Pinkerton Coleman, for the review of Rooted and Winged and other books on her blog. Her blog is a wonderful mix of posts about travel, New Mexico, and adoption.
So excited to see such a beautiful review of Rooted and Winged by Elizabeth Gauffreau in the new issue of Anti-Heroin Chic. A big thank you also to editor James Diaz.
Perry’s ultrasound showed that he definitely has either IBD or lymphoma. Our decision was narrowed down to starting steroids or having investigative surgery. A complication is that he has recently developed a heart murmur so nothing can be done (except food change nightmare) until after his echocardiogram which is after Christmas! If you are a praying person, please put us on your list. Or send healing vibes or demands to the universe that this is IBD and that the steroids will make him well!
Artist Kelsey Montague has painted art wings all over the country (and elsewhere). One of her murals is at the Fashion Square Mall in Scottsdale, Arizona. When my daughter and I had lunch at the mall, she took my pic with the wings to celebrate the 2022 publication of my poetry collection Rooted and Winged.
The poems of Rooted and Winged explore the emotional and physical movement of flight and falling. They are of the earth, the place of fertile origins, and of the dream world we observe and imagine when we look upward. Golems and ghosts that emerge from the ground, as well as the birds and angels that live above us, inhabit the collection. We will always be striving for flight, even as we feel most comfortable closest to the earth.
There are poems about Arizona, California, and the lakes of Michigan. My maternal grandparents are the characters that most inhabit this book.
The poems of Luanne Castle’s Rooted and Winged are embedded in land and weather. “Bluegills snap up larvae in slivers of illusory light,” she writes early in the collection, hinting at the sensibilities of the companionable speaker who will usher us through the book.
Perry had his abdominal ultrasound on Friday, but I have not yet heard the results. I am giving him lots of hugs because he was feeling pretty sorry for himself going through the medical tests. Notice how his ears are down in a frown.
By the way, I was a little premature about the gardener and I being over Covid. We are but we aren’t. We just aren’t feeling that good yet, and I have a lot of congestion still.
I signed up for Everything Art’s Wanderlust 2023, which is a daily art program with prompts that lasts the whole year. Last year I participated in Care December which is similar, but only lasts for three or four weeks. This summer I did another program through EA that lasted ninety days. Think of what they offer as “mindful, intuitive mixed-media art journaling.” I haven’t felt very creative lately, so I have been preparing backgrounds and/or prepping pages in a journal, readying it for January. I’ve also been fooling around with Visual Poetry. We’ll see how that comes along. And I’ve been working on daughter’s wedding journal. This might sound like a lot, but compared with what I’ve done in the past it is not.
I’ve been making some headway in my reading stack. That’s good because I wanted to write reviews for some of these books. Writers love reviews!
I’m trying to write a poem a day this month, but not holding out hope of anything brilliant coming out of it.
The other day, when I was driving Perry to his appointment, a creamy white bird flew across right in front of us. It was so unusual to see a white bird in the sky around here. I’m sure it was an egret, flying low and slow, but powerfully and illuminated by the sunlight. I’m going to assume this sighting is a positive symbol.
