Catching Up

Keeping to ourselves this past year, staying free of Covid, Warren and I have resorted once more to habits that we relied on during all the times we were isolated before. Not for the first time, having wildly different but complementary styles has saved our lives. We’re lucky we have a big yard to knock around in.

Social isolation has been good for my resolve. I finally got around to updating my web site layout. It’s time to start putting fresh content into it again, especially now that I seem to have more to say.

It’s been a good year for writing. Zoom poetry workshops—and a nearly total absence of distractions—turn out to be a spur to production. I’ve written a couple dozen new poems. Like all the old folk in quarantine, I’ve taken up memoir, writing some twenty stories. And the isolation has spurred my efforts to work on getting my work published again.

Since last summer, I’ve seen seven poems published, with another due out next month. Last winter, I entered three poems about life with Warren, “Forty-Five Years Since,” “Propolis,” and “Thumper at the Barricade,” into a contest run by AIDS Thrift at Giovanni’s Room. Didn’t win the contest, but the store included the poems into their anthology, Queerbook, which they’re selling through their site.

At the turn of the year, I had a poem, “Warm Winter,” accepted and published by The Poet in their Christmas collection.

Just last week, Red Eft Review published two more of my efforts, “Hen and Mutt” and “Traveling Home.”

Yesterday, TunaFish Journal published my poem, “If I Go First,” in their “Endings” issue. There’s even an accompanying video of the poet delivering his verse.

I’m proud of my new work, and pleased that it seems to be getting received as warmly as my old verses did.