haiku in bottle rockets #44

bottle rockets #44, 2021

new year’s resolutions

I wrote the following in response to another blogger’s call for writerly resolutions:

In 2019 I got a first book published (prose or prose poetry). It was pub'd by a tiny press without resources for any kind of marketing. But it’s a handsome book and the publisher is a sweetheart. Figuring out how to get it out into the world has been, well, a hobby ever since. 

I like performing so I was going to open mics in our very active SF Bay Area literary scene -- I sold a few copies, I traded for other people’s books (I like trades!) -- but then the pandemic came along. The boxes have been gathering dust. So I've started doing something I always wanted to do -- I'm sending free copies to people I like and admire. I've only sent a few out this way so far. I include a handwritten letter. I am shy about sending to people I don't know personally. But I'm poised to do so. So I will be doing that in 2021.

There were years there when rejection was so hurtful I did few submissions. In 2017 I put together a poetry manuscript, motivated by a contest. Though the nucleus of the manuscript is published poems, many of my favorites were unpublished. So, while waiting to hear back from the contest judges, I started sending out the unpublished poems. The manuscript didn’t win the contest, but most of the poems have been published now in ezines. I will send the manuscript to other presses/contests in 2021. 

I have another prose manuscript, and I've been able to place excerpts in a few literary venues. I have gathered almost 150 rejections for excerpts. The full manuscript has been rejected only three times. I will put more energy into getting the manuscript out in 2021. 

Then there are all the poems that fill up notebooks. Since 2017 I have been regularly sending out work and rejection no longer feels so crushing. Acceptances happen now and then. Dreams of literary fame continue to haunt my chinks and crannies, of course, because I'm a dreamer. I sent out two poetry submissions before writing this comment. I got one rejection this morning. In my three-person writing group we use: #keepyournumbersup ... So when I'm feeling discouraged I remind myself to put out some of those good poems to places that haven't yet had the opportunity to read them. Every editor is a reader. If I've sent a poem to 20 places, it's been read 20 times, right? I wonder how many readers a published poem gets?

The Books That Shaped Our Year 2020

 As a past contributor to Inverse Journal, I was asked to talk about some of the books I read last year. My comments are included along with those of 29 other writers. 

The editor of "The Books That Shaped Our Year 2020," Majid Maqbool, says, “As the year comes to an end, we asked Kashmir’s writers, poets, academics, journalists and some of our contributors about the books they’ve managed to read this year. These are books that have resonated and stayed with them, giving them company, educating them about the world, and expanding their knowledge. In an unstable year that mostly confined us indoors due to the raging pandemic, keeping us apart and limiting our travels and mobility, books open new doors of knowledge and insight, in the end making us feel less lonely.  The idea is to share a diverse list of books, across genres, published this year and in earlier years from which our readers can choose and pick something to read as per their taste as they step into a new year.”

This is what I wrote:

Finding Them Gone: Visiting China’s Poets of the Past by Bill Porter / Red Pine

Bill Porter travels around China like a geologist, scratching at its surface modernity to reveal the deep time of its civilization, the continuities of its arts, and the personalities that are still vivid hundreds (thousands?) of years after their life on Earth, all this while negotiating taxi rides, grumping at bad motels, and getting lost in rural villages.

The Invitation-Only Zone: The True Story of North Korea’s Abduction Project by Robert S. Boynton

One of the strangest stories ever. For decades the North Korean government kidnapped foreigners and set them up in North Korea as involuntary guests. Why? No one really seems to know. Robert Boynton profiles some Japanese abductees, and puts together evidence that might lead to an explanation, but never quite does.

The Pink Line: Journeys Across the World’s Queer Frontiers by Mark Gevisser

Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Queer … South African Mark Gevisser interviews people all over the world to trace the progress (and regression) of rights and liberties among the non-het. The global LGBT rights movement has influenced the way everyone thinks of themselves, it seems, even in societies where there were traditional roles for third gender people. The book’s strength is in the individual stories, whether in Africa, India, or Mexico. These are day to day struggles in contexts that a decade or two ago did not exist.

A few others:

Haiku World: An International Poetry Almanac
William J. Higginson

Ubiquity: Why Catastrophes Happen
Mark Buchanan

White Christmas: The Story of an American Song
Jody Rosen

Wallflower
Peter Thomas Bullen

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
Yuval Noah Harari

2020 in publications

A quick list of the places that included something of my work in 2020:

Sheila-na-gig

Inverse Journal

Bones

Cabildo Quarterly

Cacti Fur

E-ratio

bottle rockets

Witty Partition (formerly The Wall)

Otoliths

Sparkle & Blink

The Collidescope

Ginosko Literary Journal

Spillway

CutBank

Door Is A Jar

Humble Pie

Thousand

now available in a 2-volume edition

(as well as the original 10-vols and the ebook)

Living Senryu Anthology

—ah: anthology of American haiku, mondo edition

edited by Jonathan Hayes and Richard Lopez

Poems-for-All Press, San Diego

readings (via Zoom):

Ventura County Poetry Project

Quiet Lightning

plus I finally applied for and got a listing at 

Poets & Writers

And I finally got competent at posting on my blog about publications as they happen.