A January (2024) Happy New Year/Happy Birthday Update from MEH
My monthly (?) missive on all things MEH
Random Thoughts & Writing Prompts
I’m getting old. Older by the end of the week. Turning 44. Not a remarkable feat, save for the fact that many others have not made it to this milestone. For a variety of reasons, there was no guarantee that I was going to make it. “There but by the grace of God…” and all that.
2023 was filled with quite a bit of poetry-related joy my younger self would not have believed. I generally only use the word “blessed” when making jokes with my students, ironically saying “hashtag” aloud first and miming one with my fingers. They cringe, I laugh. However, at least poetically, 2023 was a blessed year. I was invited to read at various bookstores, churches, conferences, schools, universities, and other spaces. I met a lot of wonderful people and made some new poetry friends. I read a lot of poetry books that made me question why I keep writing while other people are out there straight killing it. I also found out that I can (apparently) trick people into thinking I can write prose.
A bunch of poetry people have been posting their stats. I wasn’t aiming for “100 rejections,” but I wanted to see what my year in review would look like. However, as this was so tedious and math-requiring, I will never do it again.
Submissions: 206
Rejections: 94
Acceptances: 22
Withdrawn: 11
Active: 79
Award Nominations: 5
Award Finalist/Short list: 3
Award Wins: 2
Full-lengths published: 1
Mirco-chapbook published: 1
As 2024 begins I have no resolutions save to keep plugging away at this thing called life. Taking care of the people around me. Trying to keep the toxic at bay. Writing as an act of self-love and continuing to be pleasantly surprised when someone else says, “oh, that. I like that.” Because what else is there other than simple joys in the face of simple realities?
It’s like the almost daily call/response with my senior class:
“What’s going to happen one day?”
“We’re all gonna die.”
“So what are you doing with your (one wild and precious) life?”
Happy New Year
Poetry Collections I’ve Recently Read
Latest News and Publications
Recent Publications
“on watching a reenactment of the boston tea party” was published in The New Verse News to ‘commemorate’ the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party.
Other News
Reviews of my second full-length collection, The Third Renunciation, dropped from Slant Books and Caldwell University’s Journal Editing class {bottom of the page}.
I currently have poetry forthcoming in 3 Elements Literary Review, New York Quarterly, Vita Poetica Journal and The Windhover.
Here is the cover of my new full-length collection, said the Frog to the scorpion, which should drop later this month from Harbor Editions!
