— Martin Achatz, Passages North Poetry Editor
Many thanks to Concrete Wolf and Managing Editor Lana Hechtman Ayers for choosing my collection Tango as a finalist in their annual chapbook contest. And congratulations to the winner, Jennifer Saunders, for her collection, Tumor Moon. I’ll be ordering that book for sure.
Hopefully, I’ll be dancing for joy at some book publication news of my own before long. But not the tango, and not in these shoes!
I’m happy as a clam that my poem “I Fell in Love With an Octopus” was included in Three Hearts: An Anthology of Cephalopod Poetry. Thank you to Lana Hechtman Ayers and Sierra Nelson for creating this powerful, lovely collection.
The poem first appeared in my chapbook Flame in 2012, after an experience at Sea World, way before octopuses were cool, way before they were featured and explored in documentaries and fascinating books.
Who among us would NOT fall in love with these mysterious, intelligent, curious and personable creatures from the sea?
Read the poem here.
It was far from an ordinary Friday morning once I saw that my poem “Ordinary Hours” had been selected and published online at Autumn Sky Poetry DAILY.
I think the way editor Christine Klocek-Lim publishes the magazine is ingenious: Poets send one poem, and either it is chosen and appears online within seven days – or it’s a no-go.
No rejections or acceptance notices. Nice and simple, with a surprise at the end, one way or the other.
I’m grateful to two literary magazines and an anthology for rolling out the welcome mat to four of my new poems in the last few weeks.
“Finding Love at 66” appears in Chameleon Chimera: An Anthology of Florida Poets, published by the South Florida Poetry Journal (scroll to the end of page 1). Green Hills Literary Lantern picked up “The Great Tit” (it’s not what you think!) and “Early in the Pandemic,” and Crosswinds Poetry Journal published “Final Hearing,” which is not available online.
With the blistering heat outdoors, I might as well stay inside in the air conditioning and keep writing!
Photo by Judy Watson Tracy
