Until I Do Not

More poetry, this time at Literary Mama. (Special “Desiring Motherhood” Issue, so that’s the common theme running through the poetry and prose they’re putting up right now.)

A brag

After the yoga week of learning to let go of it all (and a post for another time is how much I suck at meditation) I’m diving right back into my ego. I’ve got a new poem up at Umbrella in which a great white shark writes a letter to the editor. That’s got you curious, right? Then go read it.

Surfacing

Finally, an acceptance letter, like an air bubble showing a temporarily stunned surfer which way is up, an acceptance letter.

3,024

I have nine poems that are more or less ready to go out the door. If I’m remembering my maths right, there are 3,024 possible four-poem submission packages I could make out of nine poems. How is it possible that out of these nine poems I cannot put together a single package? How is it possible that I can’t find three poems that hang together and fit for one of the several journals I’ve got in mind. Three thousand twenty-four possible combinations, and all of them fall short.

In which our heroine experiences a minor setback

One step forward, one step sideways. The first of the month, my poems in ouroboros. The fourth of the month, a rejection letter. It’s how it goes, I know. I’m still learning, I know. It doesn’t necessarily mean the poems are bad, I know, just that this particular journal passed on them. I know. It still smarts though. Even with a little hand-written note from the editor, it still smarts. It still gives power to that little voice in my head, the one that says, maybe I’m not that good. Maybe this isn’t going to happen. Maybe it’s not meant to happen.

But it is what I want. More than that, it is what I do. This is what I do. Put a moment on paper. Find, somehow, a word for the way it feels to walk down the street with my little boy’s fingers wrapped around my index finger while he licks at a cherry dangling from his other hand. A word for the cherry, fresh from the Seeland. A word for the stone that I bite out of the fruit so the Boychen doesn’t choke on it. A word for the pie I am going to make later. A word for the way the last bite of pie tastes, the last pie from the last cherries of the season. Find, somehow, a word.

So first I will be disappointed. Then I will find the word. And put it on the paper.

And now for some better news

My poems “Royal Coachman,” “aloft,” and “Seasons. Change.” are in the new issue of ouroboros review (starting on page 44).

Protected: Hungry

Still searching for my groove

I remain locked in a holding pattern, hovering in this strange lull. The fisherman’s daughter in me sees me circling around and around in a swirling eddy, pulled just out of the current, while the rest of the river flows on. The changing season makes me think of poems trapped underground like dormant bulbs though spring is coming at last and there are tiny white blooms in our postage-stamp of a yard. So little new work. I have revised some poems, but so little new work. April is National Poetry Month and all over the poetry blogosphere poets are writing a poem a day; I abandoned the challenge on day two.

It’s not just the poems; I am at low tide. My energy is low with the boys, our days uncreative. There have been no special projects, no neat new games, just many trips to the Tierpark. Luckily they are still young enough to see it as a treat every time and now that it is spring there are lambs, baby dwarf goats, goslings, a newborn donkey. Boychen squeals with delight (although pigeons and sparrows seem to be his all time favorite animals) and the Small Boy is over the moon that the pony rides are back, even if only on Sundays. They, at any rate, do not seem to notice that my body feels like winter even as the days are turning to spring.

The days are turning to spring, they are longer and lighter. Surely I cannot be far behind.

* * *

I am dithering over a poetry submission. I’ve a set of good poems but I’m not sure if they match the journal I’m looking at. The poems are good, one of them is very good, but I wonder about the theme. I’ve another set of poems that feels like a better match but I don’t think the package as a whole is as strong.

These are the times my inexperience stands out most sharply. Putting these packages together, deciding which poems fit together and fit the journal; wondering if it’s better to send three strong poems that are wildly different thematically or three poems that center on a similar topic but perhaps aren’t as strong. I print out drafts and shuffle them around in different groupings like I’m matching swatches to paint chips. I’m overthinking it, I’m sure, but I’m on unsteady ground here. I know how to write the poems. I’m still learning how to let go of them.

Protected: In the Garden as Summer Draws to a Close (a poem)

Real

I’ve got two poems up at Asphalt Sky (in volume 1 issue 2).

I got a rejection letter on Monday.

There are three poems winging via Luftpost towards a little journal I’ve become too attached to. 

I’ve got two poems awaiting judgment.

This writing thing, it’s starting to feel real.