Now Playing: Moo by King Tuff, newly out
First up, I’m delighted to share my poem “Vincent in His Brother’s Arms,” published in the inaugural issue of Two Children. I’m truly grateful to be included in this beautiful new publication alongside such thoughtful, talented writers.
If you’re so inclined, I hope you’ll take a moment to read, and maybe even sign up to support this promising new venture.
A gentle heads-up: the poem takes an…earthy turn (for symbolic reasons, I promise). You might want to have your smelling salts handy, Aunt Erma. 😉
Here’s a photo of the too-short time I spent at his grave. I’m so happy the brothers are buried together. It just seems right. (It was SO HOT and it was a mile’s walk up the hill…yes, my face is BLAZING) But it was one of the most solemn things I’ve ever experienced, their side-by-side graves. Vincent is one of those artists I just feel protective of, you know?
In other exciting poetry news, “Renewal” has found a home. This was an early poem I wrote, and I’ve been hoping to find just the right place for it. I am happy to report that Los Angeles-based aesterion has accepted both it AND “Grieving Does Nothing for the Dead for their April 2026 issue. Yay!!
Did I cry happy tears when I read this acceptance? Yes, yes, I did.
Remember the collection I’m working on, The Optative Mood? Well, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, but I was a bit chagrined to discover a poem titled “The Conditional” by none other than Ada Limón featured in a recent newsletter from the Boutelle-Day Poetry Center at Smith College.
I don’t honestly recall having read it before, but first: it’s wonderful. And second: great minds? (The titles aren’t the same, and neither are the poems, but it does make me think some ideas are simply…waiting in the air, ready to be written.)
So my doctor has switched my arthritis medicine (glamorous stuff, right?), and I haven’t been writing as much and I feel…not myself just now. Word Raccoon says I will be fine for the few weeks it should take for things to kick in, and in the meantime, she’s consented to read novels, even though she’d prefer to write poems.
She can be an overly sensitive thing, and sometimes she just doesn’t know what to do when encountering others who are not raccoons. She wants to dance because she’s overjoyed at seeing them, but that is frowned upon in public. At the very least, she wants to smile, but what if she’s not supposed to notice the non-raccoon? She worries. She wonders.
Silly raccoon.
Eh, maybe I should let her loose on the poetry after all. How much harm could she do?
Speaking of, I’m thinking of sharing “notebook poems” posts weekly, things I’ve written that I’m not likely to seek publication for but want to share, like sketches.
While we’re in the early, fickle part of spring, a raccoon can hope that things will only warm up from here. She still needs her sweater on the porch. And, well, so many other things.
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