Mets

Headed to our first ever Binghamton Mets game with my cousin Luke and his wife Chana in a few. They're on their way now and should be here soon. I'm looking forward to it, especially since we only went to one Richmond Braves game while we were in RVA.

*

Just got three more poems accepted for publication that are in the second manuscript. I have the poems out at many places, and this has all happened very quickly, so it's been a wild five days. Something like this has never happened to me.

That makes nine accepted by four different journals in the last five days.

(As a disclaimer, if you don't want to hear when my poems are published, don't read my blog. (I could give a shit whether you do or not.) If you can't tell, that's one thing I do here. I like when others do it also, for the record, very much. There are so many writers I wish I could follow, who don't have books out, who are never able to let you know where they have work out. If anyone reads this and likes my work, that gives them an opportunity to possibly seek out work or read it online. All the Steve Fellner's of the world can call me whatever they want to for announcing such news. Again, I don't give a shit.)

I'm very happy and thrilled and ecstatic and can't wait to keep working on this manuscript and getting it into shape, so I can maybe actually call it a book instead of a manuscript. I'm still keeping to the Send Out By Year's End goal.

I also got amazing advice from someone who was willing enough to read through it and offer suggestions. That made me doubly thrilled. Ghost Lights was a mess for me during its early stages of construction (and I hope it's not still for you potential readers when it's out), and there were many things I should've seen that I didn't, which others did see.

Almost all the suggestions regarding the second manuscript, however, I have thought about over the last few weeks and months. Experience is a good thing. That makes me think I'm becoming better, at the very least, in figuring out this mess of a process known as putting together a manuscript. Yet there were a few suggestions that were equally helpful that I hadn't thought about.

Time to get to work, cut, edit, write new poems, and get this sucker into contention status.

*

Lymelife is worth a viewing.

If anything, watch it for the cinematography and for Kieran Culkin's performance. Rory's pretty good too.

Just from this movie, I feel like he has potential to be an incredible actor if he's given a chance to show his chops in something that isn't an indie.

I have some issues with it overall, but like I said, it's worth a viewing.

Embers

I have four poems in 42opus appearing, one every few days, from now until the 14th of September, I believe. If you're interested, please check them out. They're all currently embedded somewhere in the new manuscript.

*

In the last three days, I've had six poems taken from three different journals. It's weird, because I'm suspect of these good-news onslaughts. Maybe because I'm naturally a pessimist? But I'm smiling.

Barn Owl Review was one of the three, but I'll wait until the contracts are here to name the other two. They're both print journals I really like, which is always nice when your words are appearing there.

Needless to say, I am thrilled and grateful, and I can't believe I've had some of the responses I've received when it comes to these poems in the second manuscript, which I'm constantly tweaking and working on and feeling better about as the days go on.

*

Looks like the schedule's pretty much locked up for the semester at Binghamton University. It's kind of a mirror, in a way, of my first semester schedule five years ago at VCU, only now I'm a little older and a little wiser and won't be fluttering around like a legless grasshopper. I hope not at least.

*

I think Paul Guest was the one who told me that a big move can sometimes foster the energy for getting a ton of stuff written. He probably put it more eloquently, but I think he's right. He's usually right about everything anyway.

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My beautiful wife got a great job about five miles away from our apartment. She'll be working at a Neurosurgical Practice. I'm very proud of her, and I admire the hell out of her for how smart she is, and how she'll be doing amazing things for people. This is going to be a four-year stretch of busting our asses, and I hope we're both ready for it.

I'm confident we are.

Football Season

Listened to the new Volcano Choir twice today, and I don't understand why the track they introduce to the public months before the record comes out is the one that isn't representative of the album as a whole in the least.

Some of the songs are a little over-the-top experimental to me, and the album's a little too dissonant almost from track-to-track.

I thought I'd love it, especially with the Pele and Collections of Colonies of Bees members, and though I like it, I was hoping for much more and got a little too excited initially.

*

Inglourious Basterds was good. I need another viewing. QT's most tense movie to date. I'll be floored, like many, if Christoph Waltz doesn't get an Oscar nomination.

*

Watched Scott Walker: 30 Century Man yesterday.

It's pretty incredible, and the dude's still an enigma, despite all the interviews. It's for everyone, though, not just music lovers. Fascinating stuff.

I can't wait to give more of his music another shot, since there's much to go through.

The Drift is more intense and horrifying than most Black or Death Metal records. I do know that.

*

Got an acceptance from Barn Owl Review today. It'll be the first journal a poem of mine appears in back-to-back. It's also one of the newer journals that you should subscribe to if you're thinking about adding another one to your list. Issue #2 is great, which is the main reason I decided to send again.

*

Nervous about The Giants, like every fan is, at this point.

Preseason doesn't tell us a lot. Look at The Lions being 4-0 last year.

And yesterday's game was better, but we'll see come September 13th.

Final roster cuts soon too. Will they keep Moss?

I'm sure that Tyree's going at this point. He was a factor in the SB win, but he can't stay healthy. Someone will pick him up, though.

*

First day as a PhD Candidate in English Binghamton University tomorrow officially.

I'm ready for the semester to start and to get back into everything.

Finally.

New York

Don't ever use PODS when moving. I say this forcefully, and I say this publicly.

Our stuff was not here when they said it was going to be here. Everyone tried to put the blame on someone else, and no one would take the blame or show any sign of apology, when most of our stuff is in that thing and was supposed to be here today.

Through sheer luck and the fact that it's a small world, we finally got a hold of someone from the Richmond warehouse, who went out of his way to get it on its way.

A long and frustrating story.

It better be here tomorrow.

Stick to a SmartBox or use a damn UHaul. That's us from now on.

*

Brighter news is an acceptance came yesterday from Linebreak, and new online journal that I really like. They also took one of the longest poems I've ever written, and I'm humbled that they decided to take a chance on it.

I hope whoever reads it doesn't hate it, because it might take them a while.

*

Getting settled in Vestal. Hopefully, as I said, tomorrow we can finally set up shop and I can have a desk and a chair instead of sitting on the floor to do this, which is OK for right now.

Lots of stuff done in the last few days. Appointments. Binghamton University things. Banking. Finding Wal-Mart and other necessities. Most everything's right off the Vestal Pkwy.

Hopefully we'll be exploring Binghamton soon enough.

*

The Giants won their first preseason game yesterday. Defense looks great. We'll see about the offense. Can't wait for the first regular season game.

Four

Thanks to the 42opus editors for accepting four poems for publication. I've been doing well with my goal to have a more online presence for this working manuscript.

I think all but two poems now have been published, and usually how it goes, the unpublished ones are two of my favorites, and two of the longest.

*

This week I'm seriously getting back to the first book interviews. I still owe many poets questions. Hopefully I can get around ten or so done this week and off. A few poets still owe me interviews too, so that'll help to get the ball rolling again once I get those.

*

The Magic should've won last night. Now they're probably screwed. I'm sick of the Lakers.

Over

Thanks to Steve at Anti- for accepting two new poems. Tentatively the count of published poems for the new book is at 21 with these, so it's nice to know editors are liking the work. Now I just have to work on actually getting a full draft of it together, which will probably be tough in the next few months. Once school starts I'll get back into the swing of things.

*

I'm at home for another week or so, unwinding before wedding and moving to New York comes to the point where it can't be avoided anymore.

*

Sometime next week I'll be getting back to the First Book Interviews, as far as sending them out to poets (whose books I've had for way too long...) and I hope you'll accept my apologies for the delay and the formerly dormant weeks.

I Hate Pollen

Thanks to Rhett and Cave Wall for taking two poems for a future issue. I really like what they've been doing, so I'm pretty excited to appear within the pages.

I didn't realize how many places had these poems until I sent them all emails to withdraw them from consideration. Yikes.

And I got my last batch of submissions before the summer out yesterday.

So it looks like it's time to just write my ass off and not consider the publishing aspect again until the fall.

Let's hope the summer's productive for everyone's writing.

The Last

Thanks to Blake for taking what was the last unpublished poem in Ghost Lights, "Alternate Featurette, Zoo," for publication in the next issue of Lamination Colony.

It's one of my favorite poems in the book, if not my favorite, and again it's always funny how those things work out. I sent it to at least thirty places, all of them who eventually said no. It's also the longest poem in the book too, so that might have had something to do with it, and I fully understand that.

*

The contract for Ghost Lights has arrived. As soon as it's signed and in the mail and received by the editor, we can both start making official announcements.

I've already gotten a few folks (thank you thank you thank you) willing to do blurbs, and I'm still trying to round up some more. And those that don't make it on the back cover will certainly, in full, be on the blog dedicated to the book (where I'll also most likely be selling it a bit below what you'll be able to get it for online).

Maybe eventually I'll start a real website too, but for now I don't have the time, and it's still a while before the book will actually be in anyone's hands.

Now to email all the contests where the book still is and them know they shouldn't consider it anymore. Did anyone go through this and have to write official snail mail letters, or is email usually fine with them?

Then

Just got my contributor copy of Lake Effect in the mail. Digging the skeletal cover.

Included within the pages: Nin Andrews, Blake Butler (let's hope it's not the last one), Michael Czyniejewski, Eugene Gloria, Tony Hoagland, Al Maginnes, Joshua Ware, and of course many others. The link above will take you to the complete table of contents.

*

I spent most of the afternoon sending out some submissions for an attempted big push before spring gets here.

I had two longer new ones from the last month or so, in addition to some others I still really like, so I figured they could use some editor eyes on them.

Since May's usually the cutoff before many journals stop reading for the summer, I'll see what I can do in the next two months, especially since the summer's going to be busier than usual for me. If poems come and I can get another one ready, I will. If not, I'll save it up for next fall, when Jess and I will be in a different place, in a different state.

*

Speaking of writing newer poems, I've decided to ditch this chapbook idea and kind of put the "working on my second manuscript" tag on the current incarnation.

I have 25 pages of actual poetry written, which was the chapbook. But I just don't even like the idea of a chapbook anymore. I don't want to short change myself, and it's also an excuse to write more poems, to see what I can do with all these new pieces that are coming onto the page.

Even if I'm fooling myself into thinking this may be a second manuscript, if it gets me writing, I can't ask for anything more.

Since

Got my Passages North contributor copies in the mail on Saturday. Not surprisingly, the issue's already impressed me. I've been trying to get into an issue since I first started sending out, so I'm lucky to be in their 30th Anniversary Issue.

Lots of good writers, including: Emma Bolden, Jesse Lee Kercheval, David Dodd Lee, Jonathan Rice (my friend and seemingly endless journal friend also, as this is maybe the sixth issue of a journal we've been in together), Chad Sweeney, and many others.

And since it's the Anniversary Issue, it's over 250 pages, so there's plenty to keep you busy for a while. It's going to take me a while to get through it.

*

Also received the specifics from Nebraska on Saturday. The official acceptance letter was a weird one for many reasons. Needless to say, however, after seemingly getting in with a TA, they basically let me know that the better and more worthy candidates got theirs first, and that they'd love me to attend without funding.

Then at the end of the letter they said something about how competitive the job market is, and that basically a degree doesn't mean shit at this point.

Again, a very weird letter.

So I'm on the waitlist, and we'll see if I ever get an offer. If not, though, Nebraska's certainly out.

Binghamton's yet to get back to me about how much tuition I would have to pay if I accepted their TA offer, so hopefully soon I'll get an idea of how seriously I need to consider them. They're certainly in the running with Oklahoma State now, but without specifics I can't say how much in the running they actually are.

As a disclaimer, though, I don't want to sound like I'm not grateful to Nebraska for granting me admission. Because I am. Especially after hearing about so many others who were granted admission without funding.

But I don't know if anyone who isn't affluent enough to throw money around would actually pay for tuition at this level, especially for a degree that tends to be blood in the water full of sharks.

*

Saw two movies worth noting over the last week: The Secret Life of Bees and Fireflies in the Garden.

And when I say worth noting I mean because they were both pretty terrible. The Secret Life of Bees, which I did not read before seeing the movie, has to be one of the most boring movies I've ever seen. Hardly anything actually happened. At all. The race issues were glossed over except for about ten minutes near the end, and the story didn't seem unbelievable, just not very interesting. It was a chore to get through.

David Gordon Green was slated to direct it years ago, and I wonder what he could've done with the look, the feel, the pace, the script, and everything else, not to mention casting essentially not a whole cast of professional singers.

Fireflies in the Garden is what MFA screenwriters should watch, mostly for what-not-to-do-when-you're-writing-and-making-a-movie. There was a ton of potential there, and again, speaking of David Gordon Green, I think he could've done wonders with the script. Ryan Reynolds was actually decent, but there was some miscasting, especially Willem Dafoe, whose character I completely didn't believe. And Julia Roberts, who I never really liked anyway. Plus the emotional crux of the movie seemed vacuous and anything but believable, which perpetuated the rest of the 120 minute downward spiral.

I'm not sure who Dennis Lee is, but he has some things to learn. Or he didn't have enough people saying, "You need a ton of re-writes before you can actually shoot this thing." The film's pretty striking visually, but that's about all it has going for it. Skip it when it's finally released.

Processed Spirits

Today was kind of a bizarre day. I got a rejection letter from UGA in the mail, which, like Missouri, I expected. If these schools requiring certain scores on the General and Literature GRE are sticking to their guns, I'd be one of the first ones out of consideration. I cannot take standardized tests. I couldn't in high school, and I can't now. No matter what I over think things. I'm the test-taker who crosses off the first three wrong answers, and he's got a fifty-fifty chance with the last two. But unbeknownst to him, until later, one of the first three he crossed off was indeed the right answer.

But maybe they just didn't like my work. Either way, no biggie, and I'm glad I got to apply. They're both great programs.

The situation was rectified, however, when I got acceptances from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and SUNY Binghamton. I have no idea yet what UNL is going to offer me for funding, if anything. And Binghamton has a nice stipend, but apparently I would have to pay some of my tuition. And honestly, with the way the economy is, not to mention the degree is a PhD in Creative Writing and not a MBA, I don't think I can go somewhere without a guaranteed full tuition waver for the years I'm there. But we'll see what they say after answering my questions, since I just got a very brief email from the Graduate Director there.

Oklahoma State is still looking nearly impossible to say no to. Especially since there are so many people telling me they did indeed get offers from schools in the past that didn't offer them a guaranteed TA with a tuition waver. Or they had to pay half their tuition. Or the entire first year of tuition.

With two schools to hear from still, in addition to knowing the the specifics for UNL and Binghamton as far as financial packages, I've still yet to decide of course. I noticed a lot folks have heard in the last few days, and we're getting to the point where schools really need to let folks know, if they want them, so they didn't already take a previous offer.

We shall see.

*

Also got a welcome email from Blue Mesa Review saying they want a poem. Another new-ish one. But I'm not sure how much I like it. It's one I ditched then revised. Then ditched again then revised. Then sent out and resurrected. Then thought about ditching again.

Then the acceptance.

And from this batch, originally sent out in September, my favorite poems still have all been rejected.

The editing and submission world continues to baffle me. But maybe I think all my decent poems are those that are actually horrendous.

Thankfully, the phrase "sometimes in earlier forms" is a great one, if the poem does indeed change in the future and / or ends up in some kind of project or collection.

*

And it's not surprising that I'll say this again: another amazing new record will soon be blowing people away.

It's Phoenix's Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix. Sure, they've taken a lot from the Strokes and countless other bands, but there are some amazing moments on this record. And they're starting to really solidify my idea that powerful works of art need to be like a gut-punch, and it should leave you wanting more. Maybe once I get older I'll get back into the sprawling nature of things, but this record has some great moments.

There's a simplicity that works so well with the pop and rock and roll structure, unlike the horrible bands like Vampire Weekend, who make me wonder how people are really listening to music in the first place.

Their last record, It's Never Been Like That, was good. But it's not something I kept in constant rotation, or thought about keeping in constant rotation, so it went away and drifted off. This one, though, I have a feeling I'll be listening to for a long time.

Just give a listen in a few months if you can't find a leak of it. But it's worth searching out now.

Storm

Got some welcoming news via email that both DIAGRAM and Diode took some newer poems, maybe from this chapbook, which seems to be turning into a possible full length manuscript number two, whatever semblance of it I can build at this point.

They're two of my favorite online journals, so it's great to have poems appearing again in the future.

*

Speaking of journals, it looks like the new issue of Another Chicago Magazine is out. Not only that, but the website has finally been updated.

They took one of my favorite poems I've ever written (and honestly I don't have many), which was accepted about two years ago, so I'm thrilled that I should finally get my contributor copy soon. It really is a great journal, and I hope that little hiatus they were on in the last couple years was only a small hiccup and that they'll be going full force again.

*

Yesterday we got about six inches of snow in Richmond. Being originally from western Pennsylvania, that's nothing to me, but with no salt trucks or plows down here, it turned into a clusterfuck for a lot of Richmonders and Virginians alike. Almost every school was canceled yesterday (and most today), including VCU, and tons of accidents happened on the interstates. Apparently everyone rushes to the grocery stores to get milk, bread, toiler paper, and batteries. I guess you can always leave the milk outside if you don't have power.

We lost power Monday at about midnight until noon. Then it went back on and everything's cool now. Only a bunch of ice and clogged curbs from snow build-up and parked cars. The sun's out now, so hopefully it'll melt within a few days. And Saturday it's supposed to be 60 degrees, so we should be fine by then.

*

Does anyone know what happened to Red Morning Press? Their blog hasn't been updated in almost a year, and their website is currently down.

I haven't heard anything, so I'm not sure if they're done or not. It'd be a shame though if that were true, since they put out really nice books, the four or so they did in the last couple years.

*

Still haven't heard anything from the other six schools. I have ten days to accept or decline Oklahoma State's offer, and I hope that they give me more time if I need it. With all the money and time I spent on all the applications (and all of us who have applied to more than a few schools), I'd like to weigh all my options, should I have anymore.

Then again, I could get six rejections in the next day or two. Or hear a few positives. You never know. Time goes on.

Balcony

I got the galleys sometime last week, but I just found out the new issue of Front Porch is up.

And it looks like a good one.

I have two new poems in there from the current project, maybe chapbook, I'm trying to work on.

Fizzy Lifting Drinks

A good mail day today. I got my copy of the "Found" issue of Cream City Review.

It looks really nice.

I wonder how many journals wanted to have copies for AWP.

I was lucky because that was the first time I'd ever sent to them, and they took a poem.

And in the email variety, I got a letter from Oklahoma State letting me know I got in. I still have seven schools to hear from, but I didn't think I'd be hearing this early.

I don't know what they're offering me yet either, if anything, as the official letter should be in the mail within the next few days, but it's nice to be one for one at this point.

Hopefully I'll start hearing back from the rest in March if not before.

Serling

After what I thought was a rejection after looking through the envelope in the light, I found out it was an acceptance from Nimrod.

I've sent them work from the beginning of my sending-work-out days, and I've gotten close a few times, but finally they took something.

And it's a poem I really like, which makes it even better.

Now I have to go to work.