Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award Finalist!

Sunset Beach, California (source: Destination360.com)

I'm thrilled to announce that my poem, "Family at Sunset Beach, California" was chosen as a finalist for the 2016 Howard Nemerov Sonnet Award. A complete announcement may be read HERE.

Thank you to Bill Baer and to Rachel Hadas (final judge). Also thank you to Timothy Steele, who discussed the poem with me at last year's Frost Farm Poetry Conference, and who suggested a small change to a verb, which improved the scansion of line 10.

"Family at Sunset Beach, California" begins with a little girl "digging for China" in the sand. Subsequent events cause the parents to make a trip to Disneyland, and the poem ends somewhere out in the universe. A lot happens in 14 lines!

The poem will be published in the journal Measure sometime this year.

And thank you to the Holy Spirit for the gift of being able to put my chaotic thoughts into some kind of order.