Updates for May II

Bloggy Woggy Thing

Hey! Hi! Hello!

I’m popping in during my month of relative quiet between the rush of NaPoWriMo last month and the impending onset of Ryan Stephen Thornton ’s second round of Verse Trap prompts (seriously, check out some highlights from last year’s contest, including a certain soft snare of a T-backed poem from your very own, among others) to let y’all know about some fun updates on my end. Since I’m rather frazzled dealing with the last few weeks of the school year in my day job, please enjoy said updates in a set of lists, because my brain’s too deep fried to make coherent paragraphs out of this, sorry not sorry:

Upcoming Publications:

I’m beyond happy to announce that I have some awesome publications on the pipeline next month, including:

• A poem in Faoileánach Journal’s fifth issue, Augural, coming out next month:

• Another poem, “Invocation to Bursera simaruba,” in PHIL LIT Journal’s 4th issue, The Whole & the Fracture, coming out June 15th:

• Yet another poem (Whoa, during Pride month? It feels correct.) in Poems for Persons of Interest, coming this June:

All of the aforementioned poems are pieces from the manuscript that I have been editing and revising since late March. It’s been so affirming to see that the work I put into crafting these pieces led to them resonating somewhere beyond the little lagoon of my brain cells. I’ve submitted the manuscript to a couple of contests now; I’ve also found two or three presses that might be a good fit for the manuscript, so once I get another pay check, I’ll likely send it their way for review.

Lee’s Long Reads of the Week (also in lazy list format sorry not sorry)

The books I read this week

• “My Terminal Molt” by Bobby Goldner: A delightfully written, metamodern grief spiral/marine biology/history lecture in novella form. Very Florida Man but make it literary. Kudos to Strung Out on Plenitudes and Disarticulated Press!

• “a Little Feral” by Maria Giesbrecht : A reflective series of poems working through religious and familial trauma to reclaim one’s self (and to be honest, a lot more than that). This resonated strongly with me; those of you more intimated with my work also may successfully have guessed that I was a sucker for some of the concrete/visual elements with word and line placement in some of her pieces. If you’re looking for great contemporary poetry, start here. You won’t be disappointed.

• “These Queer Merboys” by Serge ♆ Neptune: This is a book I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time, after Ryan Stephen Thornton recommended it to me last summer (or maybe last fall? I don’t know; I have summer on the brain now). He was very right to recommend this book; I freaking adore it. When “An Infancy of Mermen” in particular moved the words to align from the bottom of the page up I was gooped, y’all. Read this chapbook if you want to have a wet and wild merboy summer. It’s feeling like a merboy summer for me after this one.

• “poetry f*cks” by pixiewithpens : last but not least, my broke butt finally got around to reading the published version of this wonderfully whimsical collection, which I had the opportunity to beta read. As an early reader of what would later become this collection of poetry and art, I have the joy of saying this published version captures the excitement I had reading the beta and then some. This is a collection that is joyously itself. In its particularities it resonates far beyond Gothenburg. Bravo!

Lee’s Short Reads of the Week

• RM Greta’s Legs 15-21 Fictionwocky: Oh my gooosh, the catalogue leg in particular, no notes!

• James Worth’s Short Story “Block Island:” James Worth’s strong storytelling is on display in this epistolary piece.

• “Poetry Afterwards:” I love how Stephen uses color, and some of these lines pierce, damn!

A Song on Repeat This Week:

Un audífono tú, un audífono yo by Javiera Mena, from the album “Mena” (2010)

I’ve been obsessed with this album since forever (forever being some balmy spring day in the mid 2010’s when I belatedly discovered this 2010 classic of a synth pop album). There was a particularly lovely clearing in the sky after some warm rain recently, and this song has always given me similar energy. The last minute of this song is just beyond. Don’t let anybody ever tell you synth pop can’t make you feel something!

Other Highlights:

My husband made me this really cool sea-witch-coded shawl, so please enjoy:

How have y’all been? How are we feeling going into Pride Month this year? Let me know in the comments. I’m finally back on that whole writing poems thing, sorta. It’s very touch and go with less than a month left of school in the day job.

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