good news

  

When I began writing this post, I was going to share the above newspaper article on my work with my press, Tinderbox Editions and the acceptance of a poem from the manuscript-in-progress, but that single acceptance has turned into five.

I have started a tab where I will link to the poems as they are published called "Poems in the Wild."

This month includes acceptances for poems from the manuscript-in-progress from DIAGRAM, Sierra Nevada Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, Up the Staircase Quarterly, and SWWIM. I also just received the galleys for a poem I have coming out in the next issue of Orion, which is extraordinarily surreal for me.

I'm not far into the collection yet, and a lot of that has to do with my desire to immerse myself in the science of the manuscript. I'm feeling confident about the underlying narrative, the humanity that will become a part of the work, but I also am looking to do some deep dives in geography, topography, landscape, inner workings of the earth--the nitty gritty. Immersive observation.

I'm grateful to all of these yeses from the editors of these journals I admire so much and to the encouraging notes I've gotten on the declines. This kind of feedback so early on gives me the confidence I need to keep moving forward: thank you to all the editors for that work, for giving our pieces homes, for inviting them in.

Mary Oliver, 1935–2019

Breakage

I go down to the edge of the sea. 

How everything shines in the morning light! 

The cusp of the whelk, 

the broken cupboard of the clam, 

the opened, blue mussels, 

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred— 

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split, 

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone. 

It's like a schoolhouse 

of little words, 

thousands of words. 

First you figure out what each one means by itself, 

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop 

       full of moonlight. 

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Bell with the bear

My daughter's nickname is the bear, because of how she'd growl when she nursed. I misread an event at the Bell--I thought there was some guided artmaking there, but it turns out Wet Paint borrowed some of their gorgeous artifacts, so we thought we would spend a little time in the touch exhibit, then head over to the Food exhibit, which we missed last time.

 

So my proud bragging rights moment: I touched a tarantula. It means everything psychological, which is maybe why I did it and felt fine. If I had to pick it up, that would have involved more physical risk. After teaching Montessori for two years, we learned to interact with critters in some really wonderful ways. (Side note: I miss our corn snake.) I was nervous at first with Lamar, but she grew on me so fast.

Above: gardens of the future?

Below: an Americana in great taxidermied shape, which is strange to look at when you have seven chickens of various types, including three Americana, pecking around your backyard. But here is one, completely still, set under glass.

Above: I want to spend more time exploring this, the preservation techniques with food.

Below: The people around me probably thought I was a bit strange, we shall say, when we came to this part of the exhibit. I have a poem that is being considered by a few journals called "The Unburying of Otzi," based on a documentary about this 5,000 year old frozen man discovered in the ice. My daughter didn't quite understand why I was so excited to see this part of the exhibit, but I felt a little kismet.

Things seem to speak directly to what I think I'd like to do with this manuscript, and there's always another layer--many, many layers--each time I visit.

I have to end with this: Maya doing the mating dance with the sandhill crane. It's their favorite spot. Aside from that little window into the beaver dam. And touching all of the pelts. And watching scientists talk about their work. And looking in the drawers at the stones, trying to decide which ones to bring home to add to their rock collection. Bonus points for geodes.

scenes from duluth: the shore

I have some exciting news to share, but I wanted to share this last set of photographs from our winter break trip to Duluth. The one place I really wanted to go to was Park Point, where a sand spit juts into Lake Superior. We've been there for family photographs, and every year since, we've gone back and see new, beautiful things. This is the first time we've gone in winter though, and I marvel at what we saw:

scenes from duluth: great lakes aquarium

When Chattanooga built the largest freshwater aquarium, I remember, as a kid, feeling disappointed: we get a giant aquarium of gray fish? Fantastic. Of course, our first field trip there was a constant jaw-drop, and when we went back to my childhood stomping grounds, we brought our daughter, who was only a year and a half at the time, and she splashed and explored with the same glee I felt as a twelve-year-old. The same glee I feel as a thirty-something-year-old.

As someone who is now interested in utilizing the public educational offerings, and as someone who is thrilled to learn at any rate, I've learned not to disparage. What we are given in these realms is such an absolute and astounding gift. And when those who run these places do it with great care and purpose, we are fortunate to receive those messages, gray fish or not.

And, ultimately, it's the gray fish, the trout with their faint pink streak, the skunk and its surprising softness, the fish from the lakes--the ordinary, everyday creatures who live their lives along with ours on this strange an beautiful planet--that fascinate me the most. This is where I live, and I love it here. Only when I've teasingly imagined myself elsewhere have I known that the longing I would have for Minnesota would eclipse the great mourning I experienced when we moved from Tennessee, which was devastating for our family at the time. I remember plotting fantastical and devious ways to trick our parents into getting us back.

Now, of course, because this is where I am and what I am doing, I have all kinds of gratitude for my journey. But I've recognized it fully as a journey, which is why I'm interested, so much, in rooting the manuscript I'm working on in the apocalypse, as opposed to post. I want the characters of this book to have to face not only their personal demons but also the physical ones as well--this is climate change, this is what we have wrought, and this is what we're going to do to not only survive ourselves, but also here are our efforts to repair the damages.

I go to places like this with my children when I can because I want them to think about these things too, and ultimately, I want to foster the already deep sense of gratitude they have for the lives they have, and the lives surrounding them.