2 poems in Bennington Review

I am so excited to have two poems published in Bennington Review, “Stargazer” and “My Child Hands me a Rock That Gives Me Divine Powers.” So grateful to have a home for these guys.

Trinkets

I’m thankful to the good folks at Five Points (a journal I’ve admired for at least a decade or more) for publishing one of mine about growing up a church kid and the humble magic of church accoutrement. This poem is 5+ years old and has been through many iterations. Even looking at it today I see things I would tweak. So it’s especially gratifying that it’s found such a great home with Five Points.

(Also, thanks to Danielle Weeks and Jess Bryant for providing eyes on latter stages of this one)

Children's Bible

The new issue of The Arkansas International just came out and it features a poem of mine called “Children’s Bible” inspired by my experiences growing up as a Pastor’s kid in a Protestant church but also just inspired by my own fatherhood and coming of age. It’s got some of the Bible’s Greatest Hits: Samson’s donkey’s jawbone, elephants in Noah’s Ark, angels with flaming swords, and so much more!

Also, pleasantly surprised to share this issue with mentor Jonathan Johnson and Poet Laureate Ted Kooser!

Also also, if you haven’t checked out The Arkansas International yet, you absolutely should. They are simply one of the best ‘new’ journals out there these days. Besides some gorgeous comics and visual art, each issue features some fantastic translations which more journals should publish more of.

New poem in Alaska Quarterly Review

The new issue of Alaska Quarterly Review features a poem of mine called “Travertine.” Thank you so much to fantastic editor Ronald Spatz for graciously including it in AQR’s latest Spring/Summer ‘22 edition. The poem’s title comes from the geological phenomenon created when limestone’s eroded out of a larger geologic structure, giving the appearance of something like curtains or liquid rock (if you’ve seen Mammoth Hot Springs in Yellowstone, you’ve seen travertine). The poem itself, however, is less concerned with rocks than with erosion, the erosion of older selves and what “fills in” the space where those older selves once resided. In this poem, as with many others, I had been thinking about beliefs, especially spiritual beliefs, and how new ones sometimes replace, sometimes grow on top of previous spiritual beliefs. Reading an article in a recent New York Times Style Magazine on ‘the sacred’ by Ligaya Mishan, I was struck by the following lines: “It is a banality of the modern day to say, “Nothing is sacred.” In fact, the opposite is true: Secularism has not banished the sacred but made it infinite. Unmoored from religion, we flail for meaning and seek new forms of exaltation.” I, too, have often found it difficult to confine the sacred. So, I suppose this poem is an attempt then not at localizing and restricting the sacred from the non-sacred, but identifying the new places in which the sacred has left its deepest impressions in me.

Dentist by Candlelight

I’m very thankful to editors Donald Revell and Stephanie G’Schwind for publishing my new poem, “Born Again,” in the latest, beautiful edition of Colorado Review. The poem is partially an ekphrastic poem inspired by the painting Dentist by Candlelight by Gerrit Dou c.1660-65 (seen above). Folks in North Texas can check out the painting itself at the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth - it’s worth the trip! Don’t miss the important detail of the crocodile (top center of the painting). Evidently dentists of yore used to hang out crocodiles in their shops, although I’ve yet to discover the precise nature of that connection.

Plagues! Ploughshares!

I had a poem published in the latest Ploughshares called “We’ll Eat You Up, We Love You So.”

This poem is titled after a line from the book Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak and is wrapped up in the experience of fatherhood, childhood, and fascination with strange stories from the Bible.

Although this issue may feature a poem some have rightfully found offensive, there’s so much other great work here by Leila Chatti, Lara Egger, Hannah Hirsh, Kwame Dawes, and others. :)

"Naming the River" in Spillway

When I moved to the Dallas/Fort Worth metroplex in 2016, one of the first things I noticed was a conspicuous scarcity in access to natural areas. Where I’d lived in Washington state and Tennessee, I could hop in the car and get lost on some path through the woods in 15 minutes. In Texas, however, it took extra time and effort to seek out those wild places. Having relied on natural landscapes for inspiration, I was worried that Texas would leave me dry. Perhaps Texas gave me the push I needed to grow as a writer. Who knows. Eventually, I found myself writing about Dallas’ own particular mix of the ‘natural’ and the ‘urban,’ the ‘suburban’ and the ‘exurban.’ This poem in Spillway is one such example, and I’m very grateful to editors Patricia Smith and Lynne Thompson for giving it some space in their latest annual edition (number 29!).

On a related note, the impetus for this poem was, in part, a tweet from the musician Perfume Genius. We had gone down to the flooded river, seen the swimming rabbit; I wrote a note or two about it in a journal, and let it sit there for several months. Then, one day I saw his tweet about ‘swamp rabbits,’ a real species of semi-aquatic rabbit that lives throughout the southern U.S. Eventually, I connected the idea of the rabbit to my child to the river itself.

New Essay in Blackbird

So thankful to the wonderful folks at Blackbird for shining such a gracious light on this essay that’s meant quite a bit to me. What started last spring as a reflection on watching movies became an elegy for my late grandfather who passed away around this time 9 years ago. Not what I set out to write about, but as is often the case with grief, the dead are always speaking through all things.

(Also, so excited to share this issue with so many terrific writers, friends, and familiar faces.)

New Poem in The Florida Review

I’m so grateful to Jake Wolff and the editors at The Florida Review for publishing this poem about fatherhood in their latest issue.

“Catechism” came out of a workshop I was privileged to take with Camille Dungy at the Minnesota Northwoods’ Writers Conference in 2019. We were asked to cut up old drafts of poem (literally, with scissors), go outside for an hour, and to work into the poem whatever we observed. She also gave us randomly-selected sections of a thesaurus which is where the title (and through-line) of the poem came from. It’s turned me into a believer in flipping to random pages of my thesaurus.

Spokane Arts: Neighborhood Poetry Project

Spokane Poet Laureate, Chris Cook, in association with Spokane Arts is compiling poetry about Spokane and its many diverse neighborhoods. Having lived in the Cliff-Cannon neighborhood for nearly two years while I was a grad student at Eastern Washington University, I thought I might contribute something to this wonderful expression of community. Spokane will always hold a special place in my heart. What makes this project especially great is the wide variety of poets found here, from third graders to condominium writing groups, it is a testament to the democratic capacity of writing poetry.

Find the entire project here.

Poem "Gorgeous" in new Southern Indiana Review, Fall 2020

I am grateful to Ron Mitchell and the editors and staff at Southern Indiana Review for giving a home to my poem “Gorgeous.” It’s a poem about the strange, wonderful, and wonderfully strange experiences associated with new parenthood. The poem also features an up close and personal experience with a golden eagle!

To check out the issue and all of the other amazing writers it features, head here.

New Piece in Waxwing issue 21

Somehow, Waxwing has been gracious enough to publish this short flash piece on destruction, what we take for granted, and mass empathy. And the value of art. And some other stuff. Idk! Do y’all ever wake up in the middle of the night and go eat honey. Straight. Out. The. Container? Just squeeze it in your mouth like a greedy lil bear??!? This piece is for you. Maybe!

Honestly, just still stunned to see my lil essay next to so many straight-up Titans. Please do yourself a favor and go see their work here. Thank you to Silas Hansen and the editors and staff of Waxwing.

Hotel Amerika Update

The essay “Parable of the Sowers” was picked up by Hotel Amerika a few months back, and I just now received my contributor’s copy.

About a year ago, i did a collaborative essay with Josh Jones, another grad student at UNT. We were both poets taking a nonfiction workshop at the time and it just seemed right for us to come together on a piece about being from the upper south, Appalachian grief, and the connections that can only happen when you’re from that mysterious and ancient place.

I was happy to see prose by my friend Brian Clifton in the issue, another grad student at UNT, along with so many other great pieces. You can purchase an issue here.