More Good News!

I'm chuffed to report that my sonnet, "The Frangible Hour", based on Edna St. Vincent Millay's poem/experience "How Did I Bear It?", will be published this year in The Evansville Review.

Thanks to William Baer, Ron Griffith and Paul Bone.

My sonnet "Afterwords" is a finalist!

I'm pleased to announce that my sonnet, "Afterwords", is among this year's 11 finalists for the Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. The winning sonnet, chosen by R.S. (Sam) Gwynn, is "Caliban Is Not" by Marty Steyer.



"Afterwords" is actually the fifth poem in a long poem, "Almost", dedicated to my daughter, Caitlin, dealing with her life-threatening illness in 2012.  Written in IP, the rhyme scheme is abcd, abcd, efef gg.

This marks the fifth time one of my poems has made the finals in the Nemerov award. I also won the competition once, in 2010, with my poem "Coming to Terms", the final judge being A.E. Stallings.

The other finalist poems were my:

2008 - Missing (Timothy Steele)
2009 - Singularities (David Middleton)
2012 - Composure (Rhina P. Espaillat)
2013 - The Watchers at Punta Ballena, Uruguay (Dick Davis)

Thanks to Sam Gwynn for choosing "Afterwords" and to Bill Baer, University of Evansville, for sponsoring this important annual competition!

Poem in UCLA Syllabus

Automat (Edward Hopper, 1927)

Thrilled to say that my poem, "Edward Hopper's Automat", will be studied in THIS upcoming poetry course given by Suzanne Lummis at UCLA.

The poem is the final poem in my latest book, Glad and Sorry Seasons (Biblioasis, 2014).

Yesterday I also received a beautiful letter from one of Rhina P. Espaillat's students, who was inspired to write a pantoum because of another of my poems: "The Lost Villages: Inundation Day", also in Glad and Sorry Seasons.

Thank you, Suzanne and Rhina!

". . . canto mi día nuevo . . ."

"Reaper at Sunrise, Green Sky" - Vincent Van Gogh

This is how I feel every morning after waking up from yet another night of "Gorgonas" . . .


Amanecer

Hincho mi corazón para que entre
como cascada ardiente el Universo.
El nuevo día llega y su llegada
me deja sin aliento.
Canto como la gruta que es colmada
canto mi día nuevo.

Por la gracia perdida y recobrada
humilde soy sin dar y recibiendo
hasta que la Gorgona de la noche
va, derrotada, huyendo.
   

-- Gabriela Mistral