Kind of Karmic

Image of the Day:  Two white-throated sparrows chasing one another into the blooming Asian Dogwood tree, bouncing in the breeze.


There is a wire fallen down onto my mailbox today.  I called the town's electrical office and they tell me they think a truck--I'm assuming one of those semi-trucks--came through and ripped out a bunch of wires along this stretch of road.  The wire is a FIOS wire, and the company's been notified, but apparently don't seem to be in a hurry to fix it.  Hang it back up.  I don't think I'm getting my mail today. 


Got two rejections yesterday--one read, "Dear entrant"--entrant not even being capitalized.  You know it's not good when  the letter starts out that way.  But at least I can send some stuff back out now.  I figured if I complained about (see previous post) maybe I'd get some kind of karmic action out of it. 


Reading Mary Ruefle's Madness, Rack, and Honey.  Many bloggers have been commenting on the book--Molly Spenser, for one, and I had begun it but put it down somewhere and then, you know, other books get in the way and you've forgotten about it.  I am enjoying watching her think on the page--exploring her biases against the use of poetry and advertisements, for example, and coming to the realization she doesn't quite know how to feel about it.  One thing that made me smile that she wrote: "All we can say in defense of our insane tribulations is that they were an act of love--a supremely sentimental act--an act of causeless emotion--that made us commit embarrassing gestures" (51).  Poetry being an embarrassing gesture.  Maybe that's why it's so hard to teach, so hard to talk about in general. 


I'm trying to decide whether to try and write every day--write a poem, that is--or just keep writing in my journal for June.  I have this back and forth every month it seems:  the effort to write seems to me to be good practice, but that expectation is high and the fall, the fail, can be quite hard.  So I don't know. 




How to Go Extinct
       Caroline Manring


A bird’s mouth is its gape.
As when
young beg.


No one let us go awry;
we just got some heavy focus on
& failed to write
home.


We found a pasture
& delivered ourselves
into it
unprepared. We found


things happen
before our hands
untwist


the wire.

 

The Sudden Subtle

Image of the Day:  Driving with the windows down and the sudden subtle perfume of lilacs scenting the air. 


It's funny how the submission process happens.  Sometimes journals can have a return rate of just a few days--I've had acceptances within twenty-four hours and those are heady, I can tell you!--and sometimes you wonder what on earth is happening to your poems.  Now, realistically, I know that editors have lives, they are super-busy with those lives, and the poems might have to go through a committee process, etc.  But emotionally, for me, this round of submissions is taking forever!  I have four packets of poems that have been out for over 100 days or so, which doesn't sound like that much time.  And I hate when I get impatient. 


But I did get an acceptance yesterday which made my week!  I have written two poems about Maria Sibylla Merian,  that entymologist I've been interested in, and those were accepted by a new journal,
Tinderbox Poetry Review, that I'm thrilled to be in.  I haven't had the wherewithal to write any more about her or her gorgeous plates, but hopefully in June, all things poetry-wise will pick up. 


Wish me luck this weekend!




By the Front Door
by W. S. Merwin

Rain through the morning
and in the long pool a toad singing
happiness old as water

"By the Front Door" by W.S. Merwin from The Moon Before Morning. © Copper Canyon Press, 2014. Reprinted with permission. (buy now)

Winners!

Thanks everyone for playing.  And the winners are....[drum roll please!]


Elliot won Oni Buchanan's What Animal!


Rachel Thomson won Her Vena Amoris!


and Michael Wells won a copy of The Journal!


I will be emailing you all shortly to find out where to send these items.  If I don't have your email, please email me at bergcaro at gmail dot com.  Thank you!


It is possible I may throw in random additional things into your freebies.


Congratulations and stop in again next year!