Our Father Who Art In Clifton

So thrilled that ROPES Literary Journal of Galway, Ireland has published my poem Our Father Who Art in Clifton, in their recent issue. I was invited to the launch and so would've loved another trip to Galway, I do consider it my other home, but it wasn't possible.

This 25th edition of ROPES is titled Silence and proceeds will aide Pieta House, an organization that focuses on prevention of suicide and self harm.

It is also a huge kick knowing that this issue is on sale at various stores throughout Galway that I have at one time or another shopped in, such as the oh so very wonderful bookstore, Charlie Byrne's. Charlies is a great place crammed full of books on various levels with comfy chairs scattered about where one can plop down and read away an afternoon. Something I did often while I studied at NUIG (National University Ireland Galway) in the summer of 2015.

Our Father Who Art in Clifton

Our father is dead, in yonder hospital bed

                Pale skinned Irishman, cooling while

the pizza warms in the oven

We ordered a thick crust just after he left us

(Watching parents die is exhausting)

thinking we’d have more time

Before the funeral home staff arrived

                Banging at the door

                Hello? Is anyone there?

I hear the extra cheese bubbling so please

                Could we have a moment to eat

to drink, to think

It’s not like he’s going anywhere

Quiet and no longer alert he, basically a dirty

                Footed man who worked menial jobs for menial

 Pay yet kept the bellies of six pumpkins full

Go away hearse, we’ve changed our minds

                Our Father’s first limo ride can wait

                There is one more meal to share

Let us break apart the triangular pieces of heart

                An offering to the man who baked bread

For our suppers, remained faithful to our mother

Who God knows, was no Clara Bernhardt

Crime Might Pay But Writing (Usually) Doesn't

From Muzzle Magazine: "Artists should be paid for their labor. We wish we could pay you. We cannot pay you."

I ran across that-what would you call it? A regret? An admission?-when I was submitting yet another group of poems last month. I loved it. The verbal recognition of a writer's worth. It made me want to be published by this magazine and so I submitted five of my best poems. I have yet to hear back from them, but it's only been two months. Not long for most literary journals.

Truth is, few writers, especially poets, are recognized in terms of cash. In the year since I graduated from UIUC and focused seriously on my craft, I have submitted to 123 publications and been paid real money-once. My other acceptances were "paid" via journal copies, or web page shout outs, or just a nice email.

Gemini Magazine sent me such an email regarding their 2017 Poetry Contest.  In a nutshell it said, Thanks for entering. You weren't choosen as a winner but your poem was kinda good. Not good enough to be published but good enough to be listed as "notable."

I liked that email. I'll take notable. It's better than being outright rejected. Better than never hearing back at all. Better than being told Good Lord in Heaven your poetry reeks worse than that piece of salmon you forgot in the back of the fridge.  Stick to feeding pigs already.

At this point in my writing career, two whole years in, I will take whatever reward I might get. A coin tossed my way, a cyber nod, a minor mention at a family event-Hey sister, I read your story in After Hours, it was ok. This does not mean I don't value my work. I do. What it does mean, is that I am a realist. My work is still raw. My work is still new. My work needs work. My work must please me for the sake of writing it-first and foremost.

Besides, most literary magazines operate on donations and subscription fees. Little is left for writer payment. Like many restaurants, lit mags tend to come and go. Which is why so many writers also teach or manufacture fidget spinners or run small farms: because mortgages must be paid, computers run best with electricity, and wee mouths must be filled with food.

When thinking about my future as a writer, and the possibilities of bringing in a bit of income doing what I love sometime before I turn eighty,  I remember what Stephen King said in his book On Writing: A memoir of the Craft. He and his wife Tabitha were under great financial stress in the 1970's and dealing with an ill child with an earache, when he received his first substantial book advance for his novel Carrie. His most immediate thought at the time was, and I paraphrase, "Great! Now we can afford to buy the Pink Stuff."

Me too, Stephen. One day, I hope that my work brings in enough extra cash to buy a bit of The Pink Stuff.

Suffering From Genre Confusion

They say the first step is admitting that you have a problem, so ok, I admit it. I am suffering from a serious case of genre confusion.

As a child I was certain my bent was towards poetry. I scribbled a few lines, rhymed nun with run (we lived next door to a convent in Chicago), and I called it good. In high school, angst filled-who wasn't-I carried around a leather covered notebook for all the brilliant one liners I might have. During my first go-round in college, 1980's style, I hunkered down with all my pre-nursing classes, but slid in a poetry elective just for fun. Even at age twenty I knew I would bring home more cash as a nurse than as a poet, but still, it was poetry that tripped my trigger.

"Tripped my trigger", who talks like that anymore?

But life, children, a career in nurse management, mortgages, another career in organic farming, grandchildren, all took hold and I did not return to that writing love of mine until age fifty five. Now, eleven short months after graduation from a creative writing program, and a few publication successes, I am absolutely, without a doubt, convinced that I am a poet.

Or am I?

It all seemed so certain. I was writing poetry, I was reading poetry, I was submitting poetry, I was even reciting it while milking my cow. There are poetry books all over my house, in my car, and hidden in the barn. A few of my poems have made it into print, one won a major competition.  But then recently I received an unexpected email and my certainty, wobbled.

A short story I'd written last spring for class, revised and submitted to after hours journal of Chicago back in the summer of 2016,  had been accepted for publication in their upcoming issue, which arrived a few days ago. I frankly had forgotten about this little story. It's fairly common to submit a piece and not get a response for three or four months, but if more than six months goes by, I assume it didn't meet the needs of that particular publication and then mentally, I write it off.  So when after hours contacted me nine months after submission, I had to look at my submission log to jog my memory. When I initially wrote this story, it felt nonsensical, but my professor John Rubins thought it had potential.  He told me to revise it. Which I did, a few times.  How to Tell Your Second Husband He is Your Sixth Husband, took on a life of its own, as stories can do, evolving from a goofy diddy about multiple marriages to a darker comment on bad choices.

When the issue arrived last week I read the story cautiously. It was worse than I had remembered. It was better than I hoped. I was embarrassed to have my husband read it, couldn't wait to show it to my daughter, not at all sure if I will show it to my sons, all of whom are near thirty. But what does it mean? Am I now a flash fiction writer as well as a poet?  Is this a fluke or should I concentrate more on story, plot and characters, instead of  the intensity of metaphor and slant rhymes?  Shall I dig out that monstrosity of a novel I wrote five years ago and try to revive it? Will my poems feel jealous that I am spending more time with short stories? Is it right to lay my after hours copy among all my poetry books, or am I being insensitive to them? Rubbing their proses in it so to speak.

And most importantly, am I a total narcissist if I empty out my PayPal account to buy twenty more copies of after hours ?

The Crux of Simultaneous Submissions

The writer has to force himself to work.
He has to make his own hours and if he doesn't go to
his desk at all there is nobody to scold him.
- Roald Dahl

I recently saw a post on a Facebook page dedicated to submissions that suggested, "100 rejections in 100 days," as a writing goal.

I liked that. The idea is clearly, if you submit to 100 journals, either online, print, or both, you're bound to receive an acceptance. Maybe two.

But, if you're sending out that often, your risk, (or your blessing depending on your attitude) is having the same piece of work accepted by more than one literary journal. This happened to me with two Ireland based publications a couple of weeks ago. Fortunately, I had kept good records of what I had sent to whom, and all the magazines I had targeted, did accept simultaneous submissions.

In fact, the large majority of publications will, with their only requirement being immediate withdrawal of your work if  another journal has accepted it.  It's an easy enough process, especially if the journal uses Submittable as their collection site for authors work. Just a few clicks and all is forgiven. If the publication does not use Submittable, simply return to their web site for directions. For most, all that is needed is a short note to the editor via email. In fact, when this happened to me,  two editors thanked me for notifying them of my need to withdraw work, and then congratulated me for my success with another magazine! A couple of class acts those two. I will definitely be submitting to them again.

Watch closely for those publications however, that do not take simultaneous submissions. It will be clearly stated in their submission guidelines. If you risk it and send work to them that you've sent somewhere else at the same time, and you do have to withdraw work because of an acceptance, an astute editor will take notice. They'll wonder why you are withdrawing something that was only supposed to be submitted to them alone. It might affect your chances next time. There is an up side though, to these publications: they tend to get back to you sooner, within just a couple of weeks, as compared to several months for so many others.

The other dilemma with simultaneous submissions, is being accepted first by a journal that perhaps is nearer the bottom of the Pushcart List, or not listed at all, and then soon after, receiving an acceptance for the same piece of work, by a magazine higher up on the food chain. It is tempting to withdraw from the magazine that may not be as well read, but that would be bad manners. After all, if a magazine is good enough for you to submit to in the first place, then they are good enough to have rightful first dibs.

I compare it that girlfriend you had in high school who promised to spend the night at your house, listening to the new Cheap Trick record (yes, I said record) but when she got invited by Delicious Dan to the county tractor pull at the last minute, she bailed on you tout suite. So there you sat, alone in your Black-Light-Lit room listening to I want you to want me, over and over while bingeing on Suzie Q snack cakes and Tab.

Magazine editors have feelings too you know.

Professor and Poet, Brigit Pegeen Kelly

Last month, as a prompt in my on-line poetry class with Irish poet Kevin Higgins, it was suggested we attempt a piece comparing humans to animals. I chose my three sisters because they are dear to me and selected the Pipistrelle bat for comparison because of a poem I read some time ago written by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. She introduced me to these tiny creatures in her poem Pipistrelles, and I had fun comparing my siblings to the same. I called my piece The Pipistrelle Cartel and although it did not compare in any way to the original, I had fun writing it.

Then, several nights ago, I could not sleep, so I picked up a book, my usual insomnia routine. My selection, taken from a wobbly pile  next to my office chair, was Western Wind, An Introduction to Poetry by David Mason and John Frederick Nims. For whatever reason I flipped through the pages and came across the poem Song, also written by Brigit Pegeen Kelly. 

It is a sorrowful piece, one of unfulfilled longing, that constricts your chest and makes one short of breath, or at least that was my reaction to it. It is a poem that demands to be read out loud. It reminded me again, how much I loved this poets work. I read it again, slowly, jotting down some of the most striking descriptions such as "the goat's silky hair/Was dark as well water, because it had eyes like wild fruit." The sadness of the piece haunted me, a young girl loses a beloved pet, and it took some time to feel sleepy again. So I set a goal for the new year. I selected twelve poets I appreciated and wanted to study more, one for each month, and I wrote their names on little tags. I would start this independent study later in January.

The day after that, my husband was driving us to a family Christmas event and I was pouring through my newest edition of Poets & Writers Magazine when on page seventeen I came across the  In Memoriam listing of writers/poets and there, just past the middle of the list was her name, Brigit Pegeen Kelly.  I turned to my husband and asked the silliest question of my adult life. "In Memoriam means dead, right?" I was having a difficult time understanding that this gentle woman, this beautiful poet, had died. For the next ten minutes I was all over my smart phone looking for proof and it was everywhere. On the Poetry Foundation Web page, where is listed her birth and death date for example. She had died just eight weeks ago at the age of 65.

Still, weeks later, I feel deep sadness when I think of her passing. We were not close friends, I was only one of the hundreds, thousands? of students she encountered, but regardless, I feel quite blue.

I was unaware of her until August 2014 when I enrolled in her Introduction to Poetry class at the University of Illinois in Champaign.  As I did with all my writing professors, I researched them via the schools web site, the creative writing department web site, Google, and in her case, The Poetry Foundation. I was impressed with her credentials, her accomplishments, her publications,  and I was excited about being one of her students. I was even more thrilled on the first day of class when she slipped noiselessly into class wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Her long, grey hair was as straight and unadorned as she. Her presence was quiet but her eyes were excited, as she took all of us in for the first time. A finalist for the 2004 Pulitzer Prize in Poetry was here, in the same room with all of goofy newbie poets.

I was 55 when I returned to college, an quasi-mature hippie type living on an organic farm, and I felt sorely out of place in this class room full of young, bright, firm bodied, purple and pink haired shining-star millennials.  Brigit equalized us by putting us to work immediately. "Write me a poem, about anything." So we did, and they were all varying degrees of awful. Little thought put into form, craft or sound, yet this unassuming woman in charge found several good and decent things to say about each poem. These comments were genuine and well thought out. A "quirky rhyme" we penned accidentally, or a "meaningful dialogue on loss" we missed all together were given notice, praised, and recognized for potential. Rewrites were encouraged and discussed again, either in the classroom or if we preferred, in private in her office.

She was also interested in our career goals and our reasons for choosing poetry, being most fascinated by those less expected to write poetry: the students of math, chemistry and engineering. It was the exacting nature, the reasoning within these students work, she focused on, encouraging the rest of us right brained artistic types to take note. "If you want to master word economy, read the mathematicians poem."

I took advantage of her office hours several times, and she was a most gracious host in her end-of-the-hall room. The wood floors, leather chairs  and piles of manuscripts, book and papers in near cascading form on her desk screamed Poet At Work Here! I assumed she was tremendously busy with her classes, her writing, her own family, but when I was in her office, she never let on, I was at that time, her main interest. She asked not just about my poetry, but about my background, my children, my farm, and she connected with me by encouraging me to write about ALL of that.

The last time I saw her was at the end of that semester in December 2014. I had returned to her office with my copy of her book, Poems: Song and The Orchard in a quest for her signature, but she would have none of it. "Later," she said, "some other time. Now show me what you've written lately." We spent nearly an hour together that afternoon and I felt bad about taking up so much of her time, but when I would start to leave she would ask me another question like,  "Why did you choose the word 'thread' when talking about the suns rays? Tell me about that."

A few times I even thought I might send her the book, maybe it would be easier for her to sign it if I wasn't in the room. I imagined she would pen something hysterical like, "Good luck with your writing, but don't get your hopes up." Of course she would've never done something like that, that's more my warped style. She had far more class than I ever would.