The start of "Rave"

I've mentioned that print journal North Carolina Literary Review is publishing four poems from a manuscript called Rave, originally inspired by the structure, technical features, and subjects of Yoruban praise chant. They are "Spring Tree Egg," "Alice," "Night Blooming Cereus," and "She-Who-Changed."

NCLR also has an online supplement, in which another of the Rave poems now appears. This one is the first one I wrote--and it was the only for a long time--written during a class of mine at the Antioch Writing Workshops in Yellow Springs a few summers back. "Anniversary Song" is closer than many in the manuscript to the original forms that inspired me. So it was the initial start, the seed that later grew.

All five poems were finalists for the James Applewhite Poetry Prize. Click on the Rave tag below for links to more poems from the manuscript.

The word-twister's news

"Tamlaine" by James Herbert MacNair, 1905

Thank you to Micah Mattix for including Maze of Blood in this morning's Prufrock News. It's a great arts and letters newsletter, and I'm glad to be in it.

Oh! I just found Midori Snyder's lovely, interesting post about my two new poems in The Journal of Mythic Arts. Here it is, in her blog, In the Labyrinth, which is well worth following. She also links to reviews she has written of some of my books.

Night Journey from Kingfisher at The Journal of Mythic Arts
This poem and "Prothalamion for Linnet" are from a new manuscript inspired by Yoruban chants. I'm starting to send them out now and will be thinking about a publisher in the coming year.

Print journal North Carolina Literary Review will be publishing four others from the series,
"Spring Tree Egg,"
"Alice,"
"Night Blooming Cereus,"
and "She-Who-Changed."

Prothalamion for Linnet at The Journal of Mythic Arts
And thanks to Midori Snyder for collecting these poems from me!

You can look at the entire archive of poems here.  Endicott Studio is a wonderful site, full of interesting nooks and crannies, put together over many years by those notable women, Midori Snyder and Terri Windling. So stay and look around. It's where I first encountered the art of my friend Clive Hicks-Jenkins, who has beautified so many of my books.

The Annunciation Carved in a Medieval Nut in Books and Culture
Now up online as well as in the print edition.

And if you go here, you can see links to a lot of other poems by me in the magazine, as well as to reviews and "year's best" mentions. The editor, John Wilson, is quite possibly the best-read person I've ever met (well, I've never met him, but you know what I mean!)