“I Am Spending Down” at Sparks of Calliope

“I Am Spending Down"

is now up at 

Sparks of Calliope.

haiku in brass bell

A one-line haiku appears in the issue of brass bell: a haiku journal that posted on Feb 1st. 

Editor Zee Zehava runs the haiku alphabetically by the poet’s first name, so scroll down to the Gs for Glenn Ingersoll.

haiku in haiku kontinuum

A haiku about peanuts appears in haiku kontinuum, a haiku ezine out of Hungary.

My haiku appears in issue #2 on page 27 (they number the pages).

haiku at Spillwords

Follow the link to a haiku about serving coffee. 

I discovered Spillwords when a friend published there. When I looked at the submission guidelines I saw that they would consider a single haiku. I’m not sure why that appealed to me so much. Anyway, I'm glad they liked the one I offered.

“Art” at Rejection Letters

The poem

“Art”

appears at Rejection Letters.

The editors, on how the ezine came about:

“Rejection Letters was founded in April 2020 by D.T. Robbins. It was kind of a joke at first. “Let’s publish fictional rejection letters!” Of course, this was after getting, like, four or five rejection letters in one day. Because rejection letters suck, even if they’re warranted. We all cope in our own weird ways. But then it became something else, something I’m not too sure how to describe, to be honest.”

It may have started as a lark, but it’s going strong. 

“In Beauty” at flux

The poem

“In Beauty”

appears in flux

Fifth Wheel Press calls itself “an independent community-focused publisher of art and writing by queer, trans, and gender non-conforming creatives.”

three poems at inksac

Three poems are up at inksac:

“Things in Their Poses”

“There Yet”
“Sounds Like”

The editors at Cephalo Press describe their mission:

“At heart, we’re interested in literature that explores the highs and lows of human experience. … Our aim is to publish work that resonates with people, questions societal beliefs, pushes boundaries, and makes people think. We want to publish brave, often experimental works, that sit proudly outside mainstream publishing.”

“Renga of Haiga” at Arteidiolia

Alan Bern, Rebecca Radner, and I collaborated on a photo/poetry piece. We’ve collaborated before on renga, but this is the first time we included (and responded to) photographs. The editor of Arteidiolia wanted to publish our “Renga of Haiga” (renga being a haiku chain; haiga being a combination of haiku and image), but he only wanted excerpts. Alan, Rebecca, and I decided we were okay with that. Just one of the photos is mine. The accompanying words are more of a mix of contributions. 

“Renga of Haiga”

It turned out well, I think. 

“I’m Not Waiting” at New Note Poetry

“I’m Not Waiting” appears in the first issue of New Note Poetry. Scroll down to page 20 (or maybe 21, depending on viewing platform).

The issue published to the web on December 31st. So I included it on my list of 2021 publications. 

Editor Nathan Nicolau writes, “One day, while listening to Blue Note jazz records and admiring their sound and album artwork, an idea dawned … : What if I could do this but with poetry?”

new year’s resolutions

The pandemic continues, so the opportunities for in-person engagement continue to be limited. I can send out copies of “Thousand” to people I like/admire, a project that doesn’t require spending time in company. It would be nice to do more of that, but I do what I can. (Yes, this is a standard script.) I did one Zoom reading in 2021. I suppose I could look for more zoom opportunities this year.

My two book-length manuscripts are out to publishers. My poetry manuscript (currently titled “Nobody You Know”) is out to one, and has been rejected five times since 2017. “Autobiography of a Book” is out to nine, has been rejected 12 times, also since 2017, though most were just in the past year, which means I’m keeping things moving. There are publishers who will consider prose without a reading fee. It’s a struggle finding any poetry publishers who will. After an ezine editor told me he sent his first novel to 100 publishers, I set a goal of 100 for my manuscripts. I’m 20% of the way there with “Book”. 

My thoughts on reading and contest entry fees would be a screed for another day. 

There was talk at the library of restarting programs. But that was before omicron, the latest covid variant. We’re back to wait-and-see. I miss both my poetry programs, the Poetry Circle and Clearly Meant. In 2021 I finally got permission to post the Clearly Meant videos on the Berkeley Public Library YouTube channel. I have one or two more to edit and post. 

I will continue to put together new batches of poems to send out, and continue to circulate those that haven’t yet placed. In order to reduce the power of rejection I hadn’t been keeping track of rejectors. It’s come to the point it’s more helpful to know where pieces have been than to shield from my tender view the gruesome pile up. 

#keepyournumbersup … Rather than the goal being to get into any particular venue or achieve a certain number of acceptances, I make the goal pure numbers. I let the number be vague, but more is better. This is really the only aspect of the process the supplicant has control over. No control over length of time editors take, no control over their responses (if any). So worrying about such things is not fruitful. Worry takes energy, and if I have energy, it’s better to use it sending work out. 

One thing happened in 2021 that I didn’t foresee. “Thousand” got taught. Two writing teachers included “Thousand” in lesson plans. Both told me that their students were intrigued by the method of composition (100 words a day for a thousand days). I don’t know how one might follow up on that. But things happen that surprise you.

What more to look forward to in a new year — nurturing/enjoying relationships, travel, reading, writing, healing.

It’s been a sunny 2022 so far. Nice, as we always say in California, but we need the rain.

2021 in publications

A quick list of the places that included something of my work in 2021:

bottle rockets

Soul-Lit

Chronogram

Haight Ashbury Literary Journal

fresh.ink

Second Chance Lit

Last Leaves

brass bell

ubu

GAS

Mercurius

The Sparrow’s Trombone

Unlikely Stories

Heliosparrow

New Note Poetry

placed in single poem contest:

DiBiase Poetry Prize runner up

readings:

for the 50th anniversary of their fan fiction annual, Oziana, I read a short story

Bird & Beckett series hosted by Kim Shuck 

Berkeley Public Library Clearly Meant reading & interview series hosted by Glenn Ingersoll (years of videos finally available on BPL youtube channel)

in classes:

two writing teachers included Thousand in their lesson plans

four haiku at Heliosparrow

Four haiku posted on 14 November at Heliosparrow.

This one, among them:

a breeze 

shades and unshades

the leaf litter

‘Autobiography of a Book’ epigraphs #5

“… Does a poem go on existing

even if it's not being read? Does its meter, let's say,

still measure? What really happens to a poem, while it

sits closed in the dark of a closed book? Do spirits

live there? Are there sperm-like, invisible strings

that stretch back from them to other poems from

hundreds or thousands of years ago that have been

lost, but which keep spawning poems?”

In these lines from his poem “Could Someone Tell Me Why” Kent Johnson touches on territory ‘Autobiography of a Book’ writhes around in, especially whether books can communicate with each other, whether one could see books as begetting other books (or poems). In Johnson’s talking about poems as entities, I also hear echoes of my ‘Fact’ series. Poems, stories, art as a new form of life. More discrete than the virus-like “meme,” a word coined to describe the transmission of ideas through human societies.

The full quote is a bit unwieldy for an epigraph, plus I’m not sure Book wouldn’t feel preempted. Anyway, it always interests me to see other people wandering around a world I’ve been lost in myself. 

source:

All Because of Poetry I Have a Big House

by Kent Johnson

2020. Shearsman Books Ltd, Swindon UK

“The Cowardly Lion and the Courage Pills,” a short story reading

 

2021 is the 50th anniversary of Oziana, an annual collection of Oz short stories published by the International Wizard of Oz Club. To celebrate, authors were asked to read their stories.

“The Cowardly Lion and the Courage Pills” appeared in Oziana 1982. Which means I wrote it when I was 16? It was fun to read. And some fellow Ozzies assure me it’s fun to listen to.

You can check out more of the readings here: Oziana 50th anniversary playlist

chapter from ‘Autobiography of a Book’ in Unlikely Stories

The chapter “in which the book observes the descent of the elevator” appears in Unlikely Stories, Mark V.  

haiku in brass bell

The theme for October’s brass bell was “numbers,” specifically editor Zee Zahava wanted Arabic numerals, that is, 1, 2, 3, etc.

This is the one of mine she chose:

on the porch
3 peanut shells
wet with squirrel spit
    Glenn Ingersoll

check out the whole issue.

Three poems in The Sparrow’s Trombone

Three poems appear in The Sparrow’s Trombone:

“Look!”
“just a putt on the green dream”
“shadows fasting in a team”

According to editor Jeremy Scott, “The Sparrow's Trombone is a surrealist literary website as well as a zine made using traditional punk/diy cut and paste lofi tech.”

Autobiography of a Book in Mercurius

Three chapters of Autobiography of a Book appear at Mercurius.

The editors write:

Mercurius Magazine was founded in May 2020 with the aim of building a community of writers and artists around the themes of “transformation” and “vitality”. The site publishes a wide range of work, from avant-garde visual poetry to contemporary surrealism and absurdism, literary essays, journalism, short stories and flash fiction. … We seek to take down the barriers between high art, literary culture and current affairs, not by forcing them together in unholy matrimony, but by providing a shared space. … Perhaps Mercurius is less a magazine than an ever-evolving social experiment, a community building project.

Two chapters of Book in GAS

GAS: Poetry, Art, and Music has posted two chapters from Autobiography of a Book, “in which the book admits to a difficulty” and “in which the book observes the translation of favorites”.

“I Thought I Ought to Number” in ubu

"I Thought I Ought to Number” appears in issue #1 of the new zine ubu. A poem in a debut issue. That’s fun. My poem appears on p.16 (or maybe 17; the pages aren’t numbered). 

ubu is edited by Lori A. Minor. She says of the ezine’s mission: 

My favorite absurdist play … Jarry's Ubu Roi (1896), … uses extreme satire, foolishness, and obscenity to mock the upper middle class and overturn their social norms, [and] is a precursor to Dadaism, Surrealism, and the Theatre of the Absurd … I chose ubu. for its roots in the plays … I began writing and studying minimalist poetry over the past four years. Recently I've decided to combine my love of the two by using this venue to focus on absurd, minimalist writing.”