Three pieces of writing news:

1) I got a pushcart nomination from my beloved Four Chambers Press for “Local Church Falls in Love With Area Library“! I couldn’t be happier over this. I greatly love this journal, and it is nice to feel as though it’s mutual! Congratulations to their other nominees, Dexter L. Booth for “Nothing in Reverse,” Josh Rathkamp for “On the Way to a Party Neither One of Us Wants to Go To,” Zeke Jarvis for “Sex with Anne Hathaway,” Leon Hedstrom for “Borealis,” Allyson Boggess for “Phoenix Daycare Kid Eating Fake Snow.”

Please read all of their works, the majority of which are available online! And if you are dying to read Rathkamp’s piece as well, order Four Chambers Press Issue 2 here. It makes a great gift!

2) I received an honorable mention in The Feminist Wire‘s first annual poetry contest, judged by poet Evie Shockley. I am over the moon about this! I submitted two poems to them, “In Response to Learning the Lego Line of Female Scientists was Limited Edition,” (a poem I wrote about in this entry) and “House.” Not sure which one won, or if both did, but this is terribly encouraging!

3) I won first place out of 107 submissions for a scholarship to attend the Winter Poetry and Prose Getaway in Atlantic City, NJ from January 16th through 19th. I got the call notifying me when I was at a very noisy bar, and kept thinking I’d misheard. It’s wonderful news, and I am very excited about this! Haven’t figured out who I am studying with yet, but I will report back here after the retreat.

I check my submittable ob-sess-ive-ly. OBSESSIVELY. Read: I have a problem. There is a journal I have submitted to many, many, many times. I watch them sit in my submittable queue as unread for months, because there are many thousands of other people who submit to this journal many, many times as well.

I usually know the exact day they finally start reading my submission, because of previously mentioned obsession with checking my submittable. The most recent submission, I had the time-of-opening down to within an hour.

They rejected it twenty minutes or so after they opened it. Crushed. Crushed! I have this image of an intern reading it and going “meh” (sort of akin to an okc message I got once after changing my profile picture, back in the dating days), and then pressing “reject” immediately. That is the best case scenario with that timely of a rejection. It could be they all sat around a table laughing at my audacity to submit to such a journal with my shoddy little poems. It could be the twenty minutes was filled with guffaws, or even vomiting.

Maybe not vomiting.

Anyway.

So I got the email and felt terrible, and stewed, and complained about it to Joe, how I had spent months on these poems and all they could give me were twenty or so minutes and a best case scenario “meh,” which is of course true, that is all they could give me given the many thousands of other people who submit to this journal many, many times as well.

That was a few days ago.

Today I called and subscribed to it. Which I know might seem scandalous to some purists reading and clutching their pearls aghast that I would submit to a journal without subscribing to it, but I only have so much money for poetry journals, and besides they have a prominent online section I stalk in between refreshing my submittable queue.

Anyway, I am feeling like a responsible, if crazy, member of the poetry community.

That is all.

Rattle is doing this really great thing called “Poets Respond.” Click on the link to get the full gist, but basically it’s to provide a place online for poems written during the week on that week’s news. I think it’s a great idea, and offer Tim Green my greatest kudos for coming up with it.

I submitted this week and didn’t win (see the winning poem here), but my submission appears below. I hope you enjoy it (please click on the image below to see it larger, and then enlarge from there. I am having some technical problems preserving the blank space). It was very necessary for me to write.

When the rape scandals began to emerge in the Alt-Lit movement, I read about them with horror, but not particularly surprise. I experienced something awful at my writing grad school, and know that the writing world, for all of our sensitive natures or what-have-you, is not a vacuum within society. What is unique about the alt-lit scandals, in my opinion, has been the rallying response. So often when I hear women talk about their rapes, they talk about the reaction to it–the accusations and blame, the doubt, the losses of friends and family. Perhaps it is just the corner of the internet I inhabit (and I am sure this is part of it, but thank goodness for this corner), but so many people have come out to support, and share their own stories in relation to sexual assault. (Yes, there have been jerks. And those who just don’t understand, and so unwittingly say jerk-ish things, but are not themselves jerks. There have been men’s rights activists, there have been friends of the accused, there have been people who don’t want to admit what a widespread societal issue this is speaking with authority on a subject about which they are ill informed, but there have been strong voices combating all of this, and for that I am grateful).

Delirious Hem issued a call for submissions of stories and poems relating to rape, following a series of their remarkable essays on the subject as it related to the Alt-lit community. I have a number of poems I could have submitted to the journal, all revolving around other people’s experiences. Instead I chose to submit one that I wrote about 2.5 years ago, regarding a relationship I was in during my late teens and early twenties. I was thinking when I submitted, if I could say anything about rape culture in a poem, what would I want to say, and so which one should I pick to submit.

What I want to say about rape, what I feel I have to say about rape with authority and experience, is that there is a great nuance to it. Rape is not solely a stranger in an alley with a knife, but as long as this is the perception of rape (and even then, how quickly people will find ways to dismantle any blame–she was out late, she was by herself, she was dressed provocatively) women will continue to blame themselves for any permutation that does not meet society’s accepted guidelines. And that is the other thing that I would say about rape. That the majority of women I know who have been raped blame themselves so hard, feel so stupid and guilty and shameful. To compound that with victim blaming is a disastrous combination. It is a wonder anyone can recover when internal and external is all combining to say “you brought this on yourself,” to find any excuse to cut the rapist a break. I think a lot of people find it easier than the truth, it’s nicer if you can pardon it away, case-by-case, as not meeting the criteria, the line drawn in the sand just an inch or two out of reach, each time.

I chose to submit a poem that reflects the nuance. It may not meet your personal criteria of rape. You may blame me as much as I blame myself in the poem. It was a hard decision to submit it, but I wanted to connect with the other women out there in the world who don’t have these textbook cases of assault. I don’t ultimately care about the label assigned to this experience, I just know that it was awful and represented some of the worst months of my life. The poem that was accepted is called, “Even Though We Were Vegetarian.” I am nervous about having it out there in the world, I am nervous to hear blame as I did so often after that experience, from my family and friends. It is a scary period of my life to revisit.

But if it brings anyone comfort in knowing they are not alone, then I will feel like it was the right thing to do to publish it.

I wish that in the poem was the story of how I left. I feel like that should be the next step, not just sharing the durings, but the afters. Sharing how we found the courage to leave. How our lives are now different, and better.

To anyone else who is struggling in a traumatic relationship, I am sorry. You are not alone. It happens to so very many of us.

For survivors and sufferers: https://www.rainn.org/get-help/national-sexual-assault-hotline

And so I post a third update in one day, only to recede into silence again for months. Or not! Who knows!

I wanted to share some images and video from a recent video I did with Women Write Resistance: Poets Resist Gender Violence at the Indiana Writers’ Consortium. They appear below.

Further, video from the readings! Here I am reading my own poem “Don’t,” “Why My Mother is Afraid of Heights,” and Amanda Auchter’s poem “Creole Tomatoes.”

I flew into Chicago for the reading, and spent a few days there. One day I was walking down Milwaukee Ave and a man called out “Poems! Poetry! Poems! Poetry!” He was an older man with cataracts and most likely homeless. He was reading people his poems for donations. I asked him to read me one, and he did, a love poem. I gave him all the change in my pockets. He told me he was saving up for a new pair of boots because last Chicago winter he had fallen four times and injured himself.

When I had been walking down the street, I felt wonderful. Here I was, in another city for a poetry reading; my father and stepmother, with support from my uncle, had been generous enough to fund my trip. I have two degrees in creative writing. I joke about being a poor poet, I am many thousands in debt for my love of the craft, but I have a sturdy pair of boots and a place to live, people to support me if times get hard, and people to support me if times get promising. I am afforded privileges by my skin color.

I only had $2.00 in my pockets.

I wrote a poem about this last night. Maybe it will find a home somewhere and I will feel validated for my skills as a writer. It won’t help this man find sure footing.

Limitations.

But then at the same time, the book I was there to read from has brought so many women solace and a degree of peace. I believe in the power of poetry, I do.

No conclusion to be found here.

So excited! The Museum of Americana Literary Journal (facebook) has accepted my poem “The Original Siamese Twins” for inclusion! Visiting the Way Back Machine, I first wrote this poem around the time of this post. I worked on the poem with my then-professor, April Bernard, and got it into its present day incarnation. There is a recording of my reading it here. I am so excited this poem finally found a home, and will link to it when it is up in mid-November.

I have been shopping this poem around for two years now, and I couldn’t be happier at where it landed. I really like this journal, and will be glad to have my Siamese Twins surrounded by other poems regarding historical Americana.

In the meantime, I would urge all of you to submit to The Museum of Ameriana! To quote from their submission page, “the museum of americana accepts submissions of original fiction, nonfiction, poetry, book/chapbook reviews, writer interviews, music, photography, and art. We seek work that showcases and/or repurposes historical American culture.”

I have a great amount of updating to do! First, I want to say what a joy it has been to work with the good folks at Four Chambers Press (facebook) (twitter). They chose three of my poems for inclusion, one of which is available online: “Local Church Falls in Love With Area Library.” The poem won a $25 prize, and was illustrated by a very talented artist named Rebecca Green. Illustration appears below.

This poem is dear to my heart, as is the man it is about. I couldn’t have asked for it to be included in a better journal. Four Chambers is great at promoting their writers and artists, and I really see this journal going places. I encourage all of my writer friends to submit!

Bonus: Bernie and Jasper enjoy my contributor’s copy below.

I have three new poems out in the world at Contemporary American Voices. Thank you very much to Sherry O’Keefe for nominating me for inclusion! Mine are the second set of the poems, but please read them all, if able.

A note on King-Sized Bed: This was written two years ago, during a very hard time for me when I was going through the end of a long relationship, + bedbugs! Thank goodness that the relationship is still over and the bedbugs are gone–life moving forward!

I also wanted to share two photos from a recent reading I did as part of Three Dozen Poets for Change. The reading was organized by my writing teacher, Leonard Gontarek, and featured a lot of other readers from my workshop and other area Philadelphia poets. This took place as part of the 100,000 Poets for Change event on September 27th.

The night before I went to one of the best poetry readings I have ever been to, with a lineup of people published by Bloof and Coconut Books. There were some amazing readers there, and nine out of ten of them were women. The positive energy toward women in the air was so refreshing, and it inspired me to ask some of my female poet friends and acquaintances to do a reading together featuring about six of us. I am really hoping it comes together!

At that reading I also heard the works of Natalie Eilbert, whose writing I loved so much it inspired a new poem of mine, titled, “In Response to Learning the Lego Line of Female Scientists was Limited Edition.” The poem is in response to this article, which my cousin Ariana Kelly posted on facebook. Sometimes the rabbit hole is useful.

I am finding inspiration in so many places these days! I can’t quite turn the poet voice (not the monotone linebreaky one, the one that looks at the world through a curved lens) off in my brain lately.

I also set a date for the workshop I am leading at my local domestic violence center: October 21st. I am incredibly excited to do this, especially during Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

That’s all (that my lunch hour will permit) for now!

I am super elated to announce my first piece of published non-fiction, “Report of Findings on my Mother, Electron Microscopist for the United States Department of Agriculture.” Drafthorse has been a wonderful journal to work with, and I heartily recommend submitting there. I submitted because I know one of the Executive Editors, Denton Loving, from Bennington. There couldn’t be a nicer person on the planet. I am also excited to see Shawna Kay Rodenberg’s poetry in this journal, as she is a fellow Benningtonian.

Hope you enjoy the piece!

Hello! I have two new pieces coming out shortly, one with The Florida Review, the second with Forklift Ohio. The latter piece, “Shevaun Looks for a Man” I read at a reading of Bennington Alumni in New York, and one of the editors of the journal was in the audience–she liked the piece and asked me to submit, for which I am grateful! It is a fun poem, and when it is up at the journal I will post a video of myself reading it because it really is more performance based.

I also have been taking the University of Iowa MOOC: How Writers Write Poetry, and very much enjoying it! There is still time to enroll and access the videos of past classes. I really recommend this course. If you’re looking for any of my submissions on there, I’m posting under sbrannig, and would love your feedback. I am learning a lot from the fellow students in the course, as well as the accomplished poets who have taken the time to film videos for us.