Pushcart news

Thanks to Joseph Salemi, editor of the print-and-also-pdf magazine Trinacria, for nominating "The Nuba Christians" for a Pushcart Prize. The poem and another called "The Midden Cross" are in issue 11--first time I have sent there. Mr. Salemi is a highly opinionated poet and professor, but his strongest demand for poetry appears to be that it be formal and well-wrought.

As guest editor at The Raintown Review, he once accepted a poem of mine, "A Fire in Ice" (a riposte to a Billy Collins poem, "Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes." That one has proved to be popular, as such things go... Here's a video of it.

I think this is my third recent nomination, but I have been quite bad about keeping track of such things, so who knows? Shall resolve to do better... I think that the last one to get a nomination was "I Heard Their Wings Like the Sound of Many Waters" (click for digital copy and audio version), nominated by qarrtsiluni in 2011 (Dave Bonta and Elizabeth Adams, founders and managing editors, Fiona Robyn and Kaspalita Thompson, issue editors.)

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Update: I just remembered another recent-ish one. The late (and very great inventer of 'zines) Paul Stevens nominated "The Clock of the Moon and Stars," published in his 'zine, The Flea.

the 100th "The Book of the Red King" poem

Painting: Graham Ward, "King in Finisterre."
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Today I wrote the 100th poem of The Book of the Red King. In the fall, Graham Ward's paintings reminded me of a Red King story I had written a year or so before; Graham also likes fools, and I had fooled with fools before as well.

And somehow on October 17th of last year, I started writing madly about the Fool and the Red King and Precious Wentletrap and the blossom Queen and many another character. Some days I wrote three poems. One day I wrote five. It has been a delicious insanity.

100 is round. Perhaps I am done. Perhaps not. Only the Fool can know, and he can only know when he knows. And when he doesn't know, there might be more.

Some of the poems have appeared at Mezzo Cammin and qarrtsiluni (January 24), and some are forthcoming at The Flea, but I haven't sent many out yet. They are still new. So it will be a while before The Book of the Red King appears in the world.

But in the meantime, you can always slide down to the next post and take a gander at The Throne of Psyche. That book of poetry will be out soon.

And maybe it's appropriate here to remember once again (trala!) the immortal words of Kenneth Rexroth: "People who say they love poetry and never buy any are cheap sons-of-bitches!" Long ago, back in the mythical time of youth, that line was typed on a little strip of paper on end of the poetry section at the Bull's Head Bookshop at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It must have been effective because it stayed up for years! XD

My 4th Flea

Scratch my fourth flea at that inimitable house of fleas run by Mr. Paul Stevens, time-traveling roisterer of The Mermaid Tavern. More fleas provided by Mark Blaeuer, Temple Cone, Sally Cook, Kevin Cutrer, Ann Drysdale, Martin Elster, Angela France, Alan Gould, Patricia Wallace Jones, Rose Kelleher, Dane Kuttler, Amit Majmudar, John Milbury-Steen, Timothy Murphy, Shaun Russell, Joseph Salemi, Peter Wyton, and Leo Yankevich. I am, as usual, last: In the Celtic Twilight. And for my new book news, pop down to the next post.