Asking Passage

The new issue of Lynx is up. It contains a long sequence of mine, 'Asking Passage.' Print journals are chary of their space, so an online journal is an ideal venue for a long work like this.

The sequence is distilled from about 80 poems written on a hike through a vacant lot and field behind my apartment. All the poems were written on the spot -- even the dead deer poems. Is it morbid to crouch over the bones of a fawn writing poetry?

Above and beyond that, today was a banner day. I attended the meeting of the Haiku Poets of Central Maryland. The meeting was well attended with 10-12 people. Cathy Drinkwater Better gave us each a copy of the chapbook she printed up with the poems we had sent her. I got copies of Dreaming Room and Five Lines Down from Denis Garrison, and when I arrived home, Landfall was sitting on my doorstep! A couple of days ago, Yellow Moon 17-20 arrived. I have a stack of reading!

I am thoroughly enjoying Landfall. A sign of good poetry is that it sparks creativity in others. Landfall does. I have written a number of poems, which is slowing down my reading! Every few pages I stop and write some poems of my own.

As usual, I forgot to bring a poem to read and a poem to workshop at HPCM. I swiftly penned a poem to use:

ginger ale
autumn sparkling
in the glass

It was well received. A few people noticed me looking at my bottle of ginger ale and realized I wrote it on the spot. Apparently that is strange. I do that quite normally though. I learned to write poetry by speaking it as part of a conversation. Thus a person had to create an apt expression instantly or else the tide of conversation would pass him by.

~K~