Thank you Pleiades editors Jenny Molberg and Caitlin Cowan for selecting my In-titled Poem, “Inappropriate Sinus Tachycardia,” for inclusion in the beautiful SPRING 2024 issue’s Special Folio: On Disability, ed. by Olivia Ellisor and Kennedy Horton.
I’m honored and excited to share the news that my poems, “Neurodivergent” (see below) and “Presentiment (*cento),” appear in the gorgeous literary review published out of Suffolk University, Salamander Magazine #57, Fall / Winter 2023-2024. Please do visit the link provided for information on accessing individual copies of the issue and/or becoming an online or print version subscriber.
I’d like to express my heartfelt appreciation to EIC Dr. José Angel Araguz for selecting my poems for inclusion in this luminous issue, and for facilitating an all-around rewarding publishing experience!
I’m pleased and proud to share that three of my poems—“Spotted Orb Weaver,” “Sestina for a Queen: Northern Cardinal,” and “Requiem”—have been published in the Winter III issue of Samjoko Magazine, a beautiful online literary journal based in South Korea. I’m grateful to Todd Sullivan and the Samjoko poetry editors for selecting my work.
Please view on a full/computer screen, if possible. Thanks so much for reading!
I’d like to express my gratitude to poet-, editor-, and human-extraordinaire Catherine Strisik for including my poem, “Message in a Bottle to Arthur Sze,” in the gorgeous new issue (issue 13) of Taos Journal of Poetry. I’m thrilled for this chance to share my poem with you, and deeply honored that it now resides amongst such gloriously earnest, inspired company…
The 2023 issue of Caesura: objects in the mirror is a print publication of Poetry Center San Jose.
Thank you all for reading!
The Hole
twinge
above your right brow
in a mirror that dusky spot
the hole
acute scalene deep
about an inch in height
just above your right eyeball
loosened from its socket
oozing blood
from cracks around your lids
a clear view
to the back of your skull—
the bone is floodlit like a surgical theater
accentuating the osseous fabric’s
orderly interweaving of dark
green lettuce leaves
with your head’s sealed fissures
it makes no sense
but to accept it—
your neighbor who constantly drops by
unannounced needs you again
to watch her kids tomorrow afternoon
“for just a few hours”
sure not a problem
she’ll be inviting you to her wedding this summer
“third time’s the charm”
how nice
a flash
on the porcelain screen
(where your brain should be)
previews the upcoming afternoon—
gazebo with picnic tables
at the breezy confluence
of the Columbia & Willamette rivers
daylight encasing you in the naked
mole-rat’s skin you’d mistaken
for a modest-pink sundress
siphoning the cash bar’s cut-rate Riesling
as you try to make small-talk without thinking
about the cool tingle of exposed bone
above your right brow
flora slick in plasma creeping out—
which puts extra strain on the wobbly eyeball…
Thank you Stickman Review editor Anthony Brown for selecting my poems, “Letter to My Daughter after Dreaming of Joy” and “Race Day” for inclusion in Stickman Review: Volume 22 ¨ Number 1.
I’m honored and thrilled for these two pieces—inspired by my daughter, Cameren, and my son, Matthew, respectively—to be featured together in such an impressive journal.
I’m excited to share this feature of my following poems: “Child’s Pose,” “Indigo Bunting,” Gateway,” and “(Cento) On the Way Back to Dreaming” which is now live at the splendorous journal, Resurrection Magazine!
I’m grateful to editors Ingrid M. Calderon-Collins and John Collins for their warmly enthusiastic response to and publication of these little soul-bundles…
I finally received my contributor’s copies of this gorgeous issue of Foothill Journal, Volume 12 — which includes my poem, “(Cento) I’m tired of understanding…” — presented by Claremont Graduate University in November 2022. I’m grateful to editors Lauren Davilla, Holly Eva Allen, Emily Schuck, and Stacey Park for their outstanding professionalism throughout the publication process.
My poem, “Dear Autocorrect,” was published last month on Five South’s weekly humor column, One for the Road. I’m grateful to editor Kristen Simental and the Five South team for featuring this piece (accompanied by a lovely introduction and original artwork, no less!). I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed, uh, letting it write itself! 😉
Special thanks also goes to Jazz Jaeschke for initially sponsoring (and inspiring!) this poem during my husband Robert Okaji’s September 2021 fundraiser for Brick Street Poetry.
Photo credit: “Brown” by Robert Okaji
Thank you to editor Tom Zimmerman of The Big Windows Review for selecting “Winter Poem” for publication on The Big Windows’ website and in its upcoming print journal. I’m so pleased my poem has found such a lovely home.
SLHARPERPOETRY 