Perry wanted to send a message today.
Thinking of reading this book as the title attracts me. What do you think?
Tag Archives: Poetry
A Message from Perry
Filed under Books, Cats and Other Animals, Poetry, Research and prep for writing
Poem Up at The Orchards Poetry Journal (Remember the Hawk?)
A big thank you to editor Karen Kelsay who has published my poem “Without Flight” in the new issue of The Orchards Poetry Journal.
Last May I wrote about a red-tailed hawk that showed up on our patio. You can read the prose account here: An Unintended Visitor
For the poem version, you can follow the link to the beautiful Winter issue of the journal. My poem is page 94 of the magazine–95 of the digital form:
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This week was not as good as the one before because I didn’t feel that well, plus I had extra work-work.
But over the weekend, I created a chalky pastel background that I really like, a strange scribble background using pastels in similar but different shades, and a string ink background.
I also was able to do some revision work to an essay that is in limbo with a journal. I’ll try to read it over today or tomorrow and see what else it needs.
So far in January I’ve collected a few rejections. Last spring I had two poems accepted by a journal that has not yet published them. They didn’t put out a fall issue, so am I waiting for the spring one? Hard to tell. I wrote to them, but got no response.
Filed under #AmWriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Inspiration, Literary Journals, Poetry, Poetry Collection
Reading, Writing, and Art Journaling
I’m readjusting into 2021 and trying to ignore the outside world as much as I can (since I have severe tension in 80% of my body right now). So what am I doing (besides work-work and home-work and cat-work)?
I really thought I was going to rewrite my memoir into something readable (ask Marie, I really was). Now I have another idea, but can’t start it yet. My idea (which has been suggested by others in the past) is that I write my memoir as a book of poems. So we will see.
In the meantime, because I wanted to work on that, instead I became excited about writing some new poems for the book-in-progress (which is not the memoir). So I’ve written about six poems so far. Because I am always starting my poems at the kitchen table, I added my craft books to the kitchen, which means they are now in with the cookbooks.
I’ve also started my art journal and am taking Art Journaling 101 from Amy Maricle (an online video course). I’ve been working on background pages. Here is one of my acrylic backgrounds. I am using watercolor and water-soluble pastels for backgrounds, as well.
I might just sit around and play with acrylics. It’s so much like finger painting. What a great stress reliever.
I’m riding the stationery bike, doing stretching or yoga, and walking–at least one of those per day. Yes, I should do more per day, but I have so much I want to cram in each 24 hour period. And that includes reading “my”new mystery series, Vera Stanhope detective, by Ann Cleeves. (Love that name, Ann Cleeves LOL)
OK, go out and seize the week and stay resilient and healthy. XO
Filed under #amwriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Art and Music, Inspiration, Memoir, Poetry, Poetry Collection, Reading
Poem Up at Cider Press Review
A big thank you to editor Carol Andregg who has published my prose poem “Liminality” in the new issue of the well-known journal, Cider Press Review.
“Liminality” is a poem about my father. The poem begins this way:
Hell’s bells my father rolled off his tongue when frustrated or not pleased with the current situation. They weren’t the angry words when his temper swelled and overpowered his vulnerable body. Being only human, those other words . . . .
You can follow the link to the full poem, as well as an audio recording of me reading the poem:
Filed under #AmWriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Inspiration, Literary Journals, Poetry, Poetry Collection
Year End
Goodbye, 2020. Go on, get outta here!!!
It’s hard to remember the trip the gardener and I took to Costa Rica 10 months ago. The monkeys were plentiful, which should have foretold the year ahead.
At least the monkeys in Costa Rica were very cute.
We all still need to be very very careful. Even if the vaccine works well for the majority of people, it takes weeks to work. You need about 3-4 weeks between the two doses, and then a week or so after the second dose before you can be reasonably sure you are not contagious. And they are going to be much slower about getting the vaccine to us than first predicted. That’s because human systems are involved, and human systems are very bureaucratic and plagued by human error and missteps. And laziness.
My 86-year-old mother lives in a garden home (duplex) by herself, but within a senior community in Kalamazoo. There is a current covid outbreak in the assisted living portion, and within the month of December half the infected residents have died!!! They were supposed to get the vaccine on December 21, then at the end of December, then January 7, and now the vaccine date has been postponed indefinitely due to “shortage.” I want you to know that this senior community is five miles from the Pfizer plant making the vaccine. I wrote letters to politicians about the situation, but it felt like dropping my iphone into the Grand Canyon.
On Christmas day, I watched an episode of Tiny Pretty Things on Netflix. My friend’s daughter plays Delia, and that is what drew me to the series. Four of my cats watched with me. (I’ve now finished the series). Then I wrote the first draft of a poem and painted a background page in my art journal. That was a good day.
I’m still plagued with a few symptoms from the Valley Fever and now the fall I took, but I am stuck at home anyway heh.
Are you living in a lockdown? Arizona is not locked down. In fact, I don’t even know what the rules are for restaurants and such because we have so few rules and haven’t heard much from Governor Doofus in awhile.
Please keep on staying safe for the new year. We all want to celebrate an end to 2020, but let’s not get carried away. It’s going to take 2021 a lot of effort to really get rid of 2020 altogether.
Hugs to everyone and make it the best January and 2021 you can for yourself and others.
Costa Rican sunset
Filed under #AmWriting, #amwriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Cats and Other Animals, travel
2 Poems Up at Anti-Heroin Chic
A big thank you to Editor James Diaz of the really fun lit mag Anti-Heroin Chic who has published my poems “Into Pulp” and “Scrap” in their latest issue.
The first poem is a response to someone else’s vintage photograph. I don’t have permission to post the photo, but here is a link: Wrecked archive image
The first poem begins this way:
Into Pulp
Lakewater pushes at my ankles
toes slicing an evanescent path
I’m at an age where I think I’m at the age
and I don’t imagine eyerolls
where I sense time abrading my surface
like this constantly moving water
stones and minnows distort into segments
molecules into a variety of atomic individuals
two purple, no, one hairbrush, a plastic ball
a swaying branch, leaves decaying
the insides of my grandmothers’ fridges
bubble and pop into shards of memory
The second poem, “Scrap,” relates to my memoir of the same name.
One of my father’s magical monstrosities
You can follow the link to both poems:
POEMS AT ANTI-HEROIN CHIC
Filed under #AmWriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Inspiration, Literary Journals, Poetry, Poetry Collection, Publishing
Poem Up at Coastal Shelf
A big thank you to editor Zebulon Huset who has published my poem “The Shape of Me” in the double inaugural issue of Coastal Shelf.
The poem begins this way:
The Shape of Me
Have I been removed from something bigger?
Something gargantuan with jiggerfish capabilities.
Some thing that attracts, precise and cold.
Looking around, I notice cars and trashcans,
and up, clouds suspended in a blue crisp enough to lick.
You can follow the link to the full poem:
By Cameron Cassan – cropped from Dancer Silhouettes. Explored, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10611704
Coastal Shelf is a paying market. Check it out for the good writing and consider submitting.
Filed under #AmWriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Inspiration, Literary Journals, Poetry, Poetry Collection
A Little This, A Little That, and a Lot of VF
My life has slowed down to a crawl, but I am still learning things. For instance, this. Sloopy Anne has to eat her meals in the bedroom because she has a sensitive nature and Perry will keep her from eating if he can get to her. She is so skittish that if I set the food down, turn around, and start to leave the room she will run out of the room ahead of me, unless I walk out backwards. Hahaha. So she watches the direction my feet are pointed. That should not surprise me because cats are all about gestures. That’s how they communicate. A flick of the tail, a tip of the ear.
When you see how innocent he looks when he sleeps or cuddles it’s hard to believe Perry can be so naughty.
I’m learning a lot about this stupid Valley Fever. I still have the same pneumonia I had a month ago and it’s possible that my blood levels have gone up (they will be retested in a couple weeks); this is because the fungus grows very very slowly and then very very slowly is pushed into an onion of a lung nodule (the rings, you know). This will take months. The fungus doesn’t just evaporate. It gets pressed by my immune system like a pearl in the making. In the end there will be a nodule in my lung.
Another thing I learned about VF is that my neck pain–remember my neck pain from a few weeks ago?–was the first symptom I had of the disease. For some people that is the first sign. A man in an online support group told me to hydrate like crazy (my GP had told me that, too) and that the pain would be diminished because it’s displaced pain from the inflammation in the lungs. I was glad to hear of something to use because the neck pain had come back, radiated into my upper back on the left side (my left lung is the affected one), and I had even bought a little brace from Amazon. (Gee, Mom. It cost ten bucks–how much could one have cost in the late 60s?)
I’ve also learned that the brain fog from VF makes me make stupid mistakes, so I need to avoid impersonal social media as much as possible. I hope I don’t make an egregious error on here, but I guess y’all will understand if that happens. That word “egregious” is so much fun. Years ago I bought a book on sale called I Always Look Up the Word Egregious. After that, I never forgot what it meant and it’s a lot of fun to say.
This fall has brought a lot of rejections from lit journals. Some of them even praise the work I sent, but say it doesn’t fit. Um, ok. What does that mean? I think it means it’s weird. But I did have a pleasant acceptance finally this past weekend to The Orchards Poetry Journal. Another problem with publications right now is that there are a few poems that were accepted many months ago, but the issues have not been published yet.
Keep on staying safe, please!!! Grab this week by the horns!
Filed under #writerlife, #writerslife, Memoir, Nonfiction, Poetry, Publishing, Writing
Poem Up at Humana Obscura
A big thank you to editor Bri Bruce who has published my poem “Superbloom” in the inaugural issue of Humana Obscura.
The poem takes a look at the phenomenon known as superbloom that occurs in the southwestern United States every few years.
The magazine is published in the issuu format. You will find this poem on page 44, but take a look at the other poems and stories, too!
Here are the first two stanzas:
Superbloom
On my big brown mountains
are rocks
that grow larger
though not visibly
also lichen, sow thistle, bristle grass
without water you can smell.
One bird seeks a saguaro
like a mast on a masklike sea
rabbits and voles above and below
my skin
run through chaparral.
SUPERBLOOM
Photos from March 2019
I’m closing comments because I had a flu shot and am feeling pretty awful from it. This happened to me the last time I had one, about six years ago, and my doctor put in my chart that I was allergic (it’s not an allergy–more of an intolerance). But now with Covid, he took it off my allergy list and told me to suck it up (OK, he didn’t say that) and get it this year. So now I have the whole list of symptoms: fever, sore muscles, skin painful to touch, headache, etc. But I would still love it if you get a chance to read “Superbloom”!
Filed under #AmWriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Inspiration, Literary Journals, Poetry, Poetry Collection
Cats and Texas and Actors and Such
Nothing much has changed here except that I am working a lot too much, it’s too hot outside (and we never did get our monsoon), and I think Kana throws up hairballs every other day because with her IBD she has difficulty passing the fur as she ought to.
Here she is in her new Cat Person chalet. I didn’t make a chalet last time because I thought Kana, my box queen, was too big. But SHE doesn’t think so.
For fun I thought I’d share an old poem with you. It was published in the journal Front Range, Issue 6, Spring 2011. It’s more narrative than usual for me, but I remember having fun writing it. After my daughter graduated from the University of Oklahoma (Boomer Sooner!), the gardener and I drove back to Arizona through Texas. So did daughter and son in daughter’s car. It was a fun family trip, and it was kind of relaxing that it was in two vehicles. Two years before her graduation, my daughter had performed in summer stock in Texas (Granbury and Galveston). So the last time I had been in Texas before daughter’s graduation was twice the summer she was there–once to Granbury and once to Galveston. The old theatre in Granbury has been the scene of John Wilkes Booth sightings. The idea is that he didn’t die when the history books tell us he did, but instead he went to Texas and got back into acting.
***
Booth Made Footprints in Texas after Escaping the Burning Barn
John Wilkes Booth didn’t die an assassin’s death
but like a schoolteacher in love with Shakespeare,
in his bed confessing with precise diction
though at that point not a soul believed him
because he acted the role of nobody
so authentically that his own frustrated soul
banned from acclaim for what was left for him,
returns to the scene of his last applause
and blesses the opera house actors
who can hear his boots slipping down the aisle.
My daughter and her castmates searched
in every shop, in the fly system
weights and pulleys, the rotting velvets and silks
wishing not to find him knowing if they found him
they would silence something important
something bigger than he was back in Washington,
or on national tour, in the middle
of the country, an opera house in Granbury
which is to be expected in a state
like Texas which magnifies everything
under its glass where you drive and drive
for days and are still in the same damn state,
a state of industrial stupor.
We aren’t lulled by the long grasses, the stretches
between. Count the oil derricks
vying with the windmills, the refineries,
and the ghost of boot prints in the dust
so enormous I worry that our kids
driving ahead of us on the Interstate
on the way home from college graduation
will disappear into one, swallowed
into the mirage as if they were never
part of us, leaving us searching for prints.
***
Do you like cats? Do you like veterans? Do you think a 95-year-old man should have a good birthday even during Covid? Then you might want to pull out your box of birthday cards and fill one out for the human grandfather of Bob Graves, the Writing Cat. Bob looks so much like my Mackie Man (RIP, 1998-2015).
This is what Bob sent in his Bobington Post yesterday:
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Filed under #AmWriting, #writerlife, #writerslife, Cats and Other Animals, History, Inspiration, Poetry, Publishing
