Little Fish, Big Pond: An Honorable Mention from the National Federation of Press Women

Writing is such an emotionally fraught sort of journey, at least if you're not one of the Big Fish. There's no certainly that any given piece will get into print, and if you're doing it right (at least, for me), there's a bit of your heart in each one. You really want to see it be welcomed.

So I'm "bookmarking" for myself that this is a Good Week. Although I haven't seen a poem move into publication this week, I got another very generous "hey you almost made it" rejection letter from a publication that I value. That's huge encouragement.

Plus some of my writing DOES regularly get into print -- the one-a-month feature articles on Northeast Kingdom people, traditions, and explorations that I write for The North Star Monthly. This week the National Federation of Press Women -- professional "communicators" from all over the United States -- gave an Honorable Mention award to my 2023 article on Bob Peters of Granby. It's a thrill to know that people across the country are taking a look at this story. He was a wonderful person to interview and I'm delighted to know that the judges caught that feeling.

Book Thoughts: World-Building and Suspense in SPIDERWEB ALLEY and EDGE OF THE KNOWN WORLD

"Book One of The Elverie Road"

When I learned that author Verlyn Flieger has been called "the world's foremost scholar on the works of J. R. R. Tolkein, of course I wanted to read her new novel, SPIDERWEB ALLEY. Scheduled for June 25 release from Minnesota publisher The Gabro Head, it's printed in a compact chunky form, 5 by 7 in ches and about an inch thick -- which immediately suggests tucking it into a pocket or modest carrier bag, for reading between stops or efforts.

The frontspiece offers an almost poem describing a chilly seacoast with nearby mysterious forests and "curious patterns of stars." Kath and Mick, who've bonded over the search for an old book at the library's Special Collections, are driving along the coast at evening, headed to an inn, when strange things begin to happen. Kath finds herself drawn to the eccentric people and their quaint folkways, feeling as if she belongs, in a way that the odd persons she connects with seem to confirm. Is this an Otherworld, a faerie place? Kath will come to know it as Elverie.

Her particpation in several faerie-related or pagan festive occasions here puts her into danger -- and perhaps even more so for Mick, suddenly in competition with a powerful mythic man who seems to know things about Kath that don't make sense to him. Soon he's denying her experience, sure she's having some form of breakdown.

The book's small shape allows a count of 362 pages for what's really a novella, or part I of a three-part longer novel. The ending's irritating in that sense, because things have really only just begun to knit together. I can't tell when the other parts of "Elverie Road" will reach print, but if you, like me, need to read this one in honor of the specialty of its author, brace for some frustration.

Flieger's novel is clearly built from the old British tales (English? Irish? Scottish?) told at firesides and on becalmed ships. Her creative aspect is the entwining of such tales with a modern and conflicted marriage. I'm holding off on deciding whether it "works" until I see the rest of the story in the sequels.

Dictatorships, Expanded Conflicts, and Genetic IDs

EDGE OF THE KNOWN WORLD (SparkPress, Sept. 2024)  is described as the debut novel by Sheri T. Joseph, but from the level of expertise involved in world-building here, I'd have to guess she's written plenty of other material while learning her craft. 

Alexandra Tashen is super bright and has earned her PhD early enough to be a postdoc student at age 23. She's also surprisingly naive, considering how much grief she's witnessed already, with a missing father and a genetic inheritance that puts her in danger daily. Any random ID screening could show up the not-quite-erased tagging gene that her father tried to spare her, and she'd be instantly a criminal and lose her career and lifestyle as well as freedom. And self-respect.

The professor she's working with, Kommandant Burton, is part parental and part mentor and mostly, although Alex doesn't quite realize it the implications, militaristically in charge of a lot of the almost-free part of the world. Wars familiar to us today have multiplied, fractured, and realigned the nations; the Kommandant is a general and a West Point alum and is in control of her group of factions.

The most significant aspect of this "world," though, is clearly built from today's American and even global politics: Someone's exerting unusual hacking skills on behalf of those who need asylum. The entire world of politics and conflict is balanced on who'll be allowed movement between which regions.

Alex is sometimes less interesting than her Kommandant, Suzanne Dias Burton (authors beware: that's a risky framework). Here's my favorite half page, as Suzanne interacts with a Russian-style counterpart who's just suggested that global instability justifies continued control:

"Gallows humor," said Bulgakov. He had the tranquil composure of a tortoise. "For many here, the refusés in the Netcast are separated family. They remember the kindertransports."

Suzanne stiffened, and checked for implied criticism. The kindertransports had smuggled children out of the Federation for several years following the Treaty, until the g-screens made it impossible to hide them. The children were returned. with scenes of screaming families that still rose in Suzanne's worst dreams. But Bulgakov's face remained serene. Suzanne wondered if it was possible for him to be outraged or shocked. Perhaps nothing surprised him anymore.

The book's finale is a strange one, half soft, half provocative. If there's a sequel, which seems likely, I'll be lining up for a copy. By the way, EDGE OF THE KNOWN WORLD will surely be compared with Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale -- but I think it's much closer to pushing today's politics to a believable extreme.  Nicely done.

 

And More Poems ...

 Such a pleasure to enter the pages of RockPaperPoem with "The Next Stage of Grief": link here.

I've been having a great time sharing my poem "Rocks," which was the first runner up for the Steve Kowit Poetry Prize -- I flew to San Diego to accept the award and meet some of the other poets.

My moose went with me to the Pacific Ocean.

Rocks

 

In New England, we grow them—harvest them, stack them

along the edges of fields. Good crop? Not bad this time.

After spring’s lines of lavender and late roses

 

half a year of long lament, laid as a line of stones. My life in

widow world: Would he have watched this season’s harvest? Praised

fat tomatoes in a bowl, purple berries, pinecones?

 

He would. So I carry him close, as his spirit snuggles

in my hip pocket, speak his name, sing louder, share a smile.

When night falls, I shoulder silence, dinner for one:

 

which drove me to delve and define “inselberg,”

tongue-tossed by a mining geologist in east Africa seduced

by the Serengeti, where lions hunt from high crags—

 

rock knobs risen through weather and resistance. On my

tongue next, the term “monadnock,” indigenous form for lone

mountain surviving. In New England we live with our past:

 

words absorbed from Abenaki assertion, stones heaped as walls

around our burial grounds. We witness forests reclaim farms.

Find old foundations of granite and grit

 

dark, cold, exhaling radon remnants. I gave my love

a marble marker for his grave, engraved with names. Geology

rasps rough on this rainy evening, looking up

 

igneous, formed from fire, blazing birth of coarse-grained rock

laid down in wide intrusions at this world’s skin. I grasp:

granite grows a wrap of lichens, palest green, rooting

 

in the grains from which the stone steals its name. Words wrestle,

weathered stones subsiding into soil. Widow world wanders,

walking steep slopes; in loss, the gray-green lichens linger.

 

-- BK

 

And if you missed my St. Johnsbury poem "I See  You," you can listen to it again (and read it below the audio part) -- at Gyroscope Review: click here. 

Plus you can both see AND listen to this poem, "TEEN SUMMER," at The Post Grad Journal -- click here.

There, I'm a little bit caught up, and I'll fill you in on summer publications very soon. Thanks for reading along!

April Was Poetry Month ... and It Hasn't Seemed Over Yet

 I started April with a poem presented in St. Johnsbury's PoemTown event, framed around the solar eclipse -- and then on April 4, had this lovely news (scroll:

Winifred Hughes from Princeton, New Jersey is the 2024 Henry Morgenthau lll First Book Winner for her book of poems The Village of New Ghosts, due out in Fall 2024. The prize recognizes a poet 70 or older who has not yet published a full-length collection. from the Judge: The task of “the poet” is brilliantly fulfilled with sonics, structure, detail, richness and care. But where this book truly exceeds and excels is in creating a hologram of emotions, a reality we can enter, where aesthetics are crisp and clear enough to create a new paradigm. Poetics that bring emotional worlds into existence have to be held in place with mastery. Someone is obviously in charge of this work. Someone is in control of its precise syntax and beautiful heart. I never wanted to stop reading. Grace Cavalieri, former Maryland Poet Laureate

Congratulations to our honorable mentions! Runner-Up: Rick Rohdenburg from Duluth, GA: Crows Fly from My Mouth Finalists: Melissa Cannon from Antioch, TN: Doll/Face Kathy O’Fallon from Carlsbad, CA: Listening for Tchaikovsky Semi-Finalists: Karen Bashkirew from Bozeman, MT: Stillpoint Sheila Bonnell from South Orleans, MA: Albedo Helen Bournas-Ney from New York, NY: Just Like the Sky, but Nearer Helen Chinitz from Walton, NY: If Summer Sear the Landscape Sandra Cutuli from Los Angeles, CA: Tracks and Signs Marc Douglass-Smith from Lebanon, NH: A River in Still Life Deborah French Frisher from Mill Valley, CA: Howl Now & 52 Other Poems Gordon Grilz from Tucson, Arizona: Just North of My Dreams: A Collection of Poems from Prison Judy Kaber from Belfast, ME: Landscape with Rocks, Sky, Nails Elizabeth Kanell from Waterford, VT: Break-Out Room Ellen Lager from Robbinsdale, MN: Buried Beneath All That Love Nancy Meyer from Portola Valley, CA: The Stoop and The Steeple Michael Mulvihill from Staunton, VA: The Distant Pines Phillip Periman from Amarillo, TX: Dying: The First Six Years Jim Scutti from Vero Beach, FL: Family Planet Richelle Slota from San Francisco, CA: Letters to My Dead Name Jil St. Ledger-Roty from Franklinville, NY: Lost and Found and Lost Again Steven Winn from San Francisco, CA: Late Light Avra Wing from Brooklyn, NY: Mammoth Life & Accident Cynthia Woods from Philadelphia, PA: Lines Over 70

For those who are curious -- Break-Out Room is a collection of poems, at the length called a chapbook. It's back out in another competition, and I'll let you know when it garners its next award. I'm following in the footsteps of some of the best writers I know in this decision: Each time it doesn't quite reach a book contract, polish it a bit more and add more skill and joy to it, and send it out again.