It always had it, really. I started writing poems when I was seven. I wrote an elegy to JFK when he was murdered and sent it to Jackie. I was eleven and one of her secretaries sent me a thank you letter. At the time I felt a little embarrassed; it seemed such a childlike thing to have done and I wanted to be a grown-up even then. But I think the impulse to write--to tell stores or form poems--IS childlike. The "adulting" part is the po-biz. Blog updating. Wondering if I should move this whole show to Substack or something. That stuff.
Oh--and poetry EDITING. Cast your eyes leftwards. I'm the new poetry editor at Eclectica Magazine. They are a venerable online lit mag that also publishes travel pieces, fiction, and humor. They were one of the first serious places I published back when they were starting out and I was still teaching poetry in the public schools--the better part of thirty years ago. I'll let you know when the decisions I'll be starting to make this very afternoon go live--it'll be a little while, but I can't tell you how happy I am about this. Eclectica's a solid mag that nominates for Pushcart and has a history of publishing really good people.
Also (but wait! there's more!) you're probably reading this after the fact, but I'm the featured poet on Rattlecast--tomorrow night, June 23rd, eight EDT.
I've been on Rattlecast before, because I often manage to get a political commentary kinda poem in Rattle magazine's ongoing Poets Respond feature online. Clicky click on the red-dy red to see the most recent one. Editor TIm Green, bless him, decided to feature me this week. So I'm not the warmup act anymore! I have a bunch of poems, largely from Unforgetting, my most recent collection, that I'm going to read. You can get it at the 'Zon, or I should have a box of books from my publisher soon, and I'll sign one to you.
A few recent publications: Grain Magazine (from Canada!). That one is forthcoming. Here's one from SWIMM about hearing Dizzy Gillespie in a place you wouldn't expect him to be. And here's a batch from Does It Have Pockets? There's work forthcoming also from Tar River. OH--and this dear-to-my-heart poem ran in ONE ART. I'll leave you with a poem about my dearest ambition--being the winner of Fat Bear Week--from BOOTH Magazine.