Hunger No More

Have you wanted to read Hunger Mountain's Body Issue, which was previously out only in print?Well, hunger no more. That special issue is now available online, including my poem 'Theories of Flow' (which appears in my manuscript Whiteout). There are also poems by Frannie Lindsay, Joel Brouwer, francine j. harris, and more Frannie Lindsay. Plus others. Check out this controversial issue (controversial because of the artwork and cover).

Nominated by DMQ

I'm thrilled to announce that the poem 'Across a Crevasse, My Uncle' from my manuscript Whiteout has been nominated for the Best of the Net by DMQ Review editors Sally Ashton, Mary Donnelly, Anne Doe Overstreet, & Marta Svea. I am honored and humbled.

Denali, Okinawa, Nogues, and a Surprise

I've been dreadfully unforgivably remiss in reporting on my residency at Denali this summer, and my excuse is that I'm busy working on a donation of poetry for them instead. I will link to that once the donation has been made, but that won't be for awhile. Maybe I'll get a chance to write up my visit, and maybe not. We'll see.

In the meantime, here is my review of Collier Nogues' The Ground I Stand On Is Not My Ground over at Tinderbox Poetry Journal. Nogues writes of growing up in Okinawa, an American with an attachment to the military base there. The questions that arise due to that experience are expressed via erasure poetry using thoughtfully chosen source texts. I travel to Okinawa every summer, so this was a fascinating book for me to consider, and I'm fairly certain you'll find it fascinating too.

And now, for your surprise: this link to "Fish Recorded Singing Dawn Chorus on Reefs Just Like Birds" from the New Scientist blog, which I liberally borrowed from poet Jennifer Sweeney's Facebook feed. Thanks, Jennifer.

Alyss!

Preparing for my artist-in-residency at Denali National Park and Preserve, then going there, and now coming back and coping with jet lag, things have gotten away from me. For instance, my poem 'Souvenir of the Gilded Age,' about model Audrey Munson, appeared in the new online journal Alyss during my absence, alongside work by Jen Karetnick, Alexis Rhone Fancher, and Katherine Hoerth, among others. Thanks to editor Amanda Faye for that!

Bear with Me

I'm getting ready for my trip to Alaska, my artist-in-residency at Denali National Park and Preserve from August 9 - 19. If you happen to be in the vicinity, I'll be doing an outreach program open to the public about strategies for nature writing on August 18, from 3:00 pm. Please come and join us if you can.

Along with reading about Alaska and the park, here's something I've been doing to prepare for the trip: watching this brown bear cam in Katmai National Park in Alaska (nowhere near Denali, but lots of fun). The salmon are swimming upstream, and the bears are there to take advantage. So far, our family has watched mothers and cubs, seen mating, and fighting, along with regular feeding behavior. And there are bears almost at any time we check, up to nine bears at once. Give it a try! It's quite addictive.