Today is Memorial Day, and in D.C. and the surrounding neighborhoods, we're visited by groups of motorcyclists (Rolling Thunder) coming to honor fallen soldiers and veterans of the Vietnam War. People crowd on the highway overpasses with signs and flags, cheering on these men and women as they pass. My father fought in World War … Continue reading Poems for the Fallen Soldier
Category: DC poetry
Addicted to words? What I’m giving up – and gaining – for the season.
I find myself thinking about Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way, and how she suggests that writers “unplug” from words for one week to get their own language percolating. No reading whatsoever. I love this idea. It would be one thing if I spent hours of my day reading high-quality literature, but that’s not where … Continue reading Addicted to words? What I’m giving up – and gaining – for the season.
“I don’t understand it…but I can tell it’s good!” – Explaining poems to non-English majors
I have a friend who’s very smart and educated – but like many people I know, has a mental block when it comes to reading poetry. I don’t know why this happens. Maybe being exposed to Shakespeare or T.S. Eliot too early (really, did any among us have the maturity to appreciate Hamlet or Prufrock … Continue reading “I don’t understand it…but I can tell it’s good!” – Explaining poems to non-English majors
Creating the book cover for “Between Gods”
The book cover for "Between Gods" is now on display on the publisher's website here, along with blurbs and sample poems. The cover was designed by graphic designer Terri Edillon, featuring artwork (“The World”) by German artist Catrin Welz-Stein. (The print is available for purchase here. ) My publisher usually designs book covers in-house, but I … Continue reading Creating the book cover for “Between Gods”
Submitting poems to journals: the mathematics of yay or nay
Now that my book publication date is six months away, I want to see more of the poems in print before the book comes out. So I am searching my Poet's Market book for the right places. Submitting poems to journals can be an agonizingly slow process. I have waited nine months for responses from … Continue reading Submitting poems to journals: the mathematics of yay or nay
Putting it all together: creating a manuscript
Now that I've emailed my ready-to-publish draft of "Between Gods" to the publisher this week (yay!), I'm thinking about what it took to get it to this point. I'd been writing poetry for years, but hadn't really thought about trying to put together a book until 2007, when the sad events at Virginia Tech took … Continue reading Putting it all together: creating a manuscript
Submitting poems to journals: what’s your system?
I've spent the last three years researching markets for my slightly traditional, imagistic poetry. I've been published in a number of places and discovered some great writers and journals, but what I can't help regretting is that much of that time could have been spent writing. I'm getting better at targeting my market; in the … Continue reading Submitting poems to journals: what’s your system?
Between Gods 