Really System Issue One published a poem of mine!

New poem published at Really System: http://reallysystem.org/issues/one/stasis_in_ragtime/

The journal has a great, friendly editor who asked that I encourage all my writer friends to submit their work for issue 2, so get to it guys!

This is an interesting piece for me: it’s the first I wrote after finishing my first book and taking several months off. It’s a rondeau, an underutilized form, in my opinion. Paul Laurence Dunbar (Dayton’s native son) has a famous one, We Wear the Mask: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173467

Another famous one, probably more well-known, is In Flanders Field by John McCrae: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/19464

I’m happy with this poem, and after it was written I read it at Bess Embers’ poetry circle (at that time at Kettering’s Library on Far Hills). That June Saturday afternoon another poet there asked what inspired it, saying she was especially moved by the image of the horse in the air. I said I had been watching the news around the time of the Moore, OK tornado this past spring, and I felt, as a poet, one of my tasks was to “bear witness to my time,” and “testify” to present and future readers. It was going to be a theme behind my burgeoning, inchoate second book, bearing witness to current events, etc. Well, that poet really liked the idea, and came back with a sonnet of her own based on that image and idea the next month. (I remember a friend’s reaction, having been present for mine and hers: “Whoa.”) She’s an award-winning poetess, so I recommend checking out this month’s Mock Turtle Zine (http://mockturtlezine.com/online-issue/) if you want to see a fine example of sonneteering. The title may clue you in.

And on a sort of random note, while we’re talking poetry, there’s an interesting article on the Poetry Foundation website by Ruth Graham this month, about a certain trend that emerged in 2013: http://www.poetryfoundation.org/article/247130

(I feel compelled to mention the other poet's piece so that when mine is read it isn't presumed I heard the image from her, as mine was the second to be published. The feelings are only mildly hard, as intimated by the timely Poetry essay.)