Larry Goodell, this month’s guest-editor of the Halvard-Johnson Blog, included my previously unpublished poem, “No Compass,” among a host of distinguished poets, including Jim Fish, D. R. Wagner, Anne Lynn McNaughton, Georgia Santa Maria, Margaret Randall, Mitch Reyes, Jules Nyquist, and Rudolfo Anaya. My poem was written after hearing Bill Nevin’s account of a Trump rally he had attended.  You can link from here or on the links page of this web site.

Tireless poetry promoter Denise Low has resurrected the Academy of American Poets online Forum, which was taken down from the AAP website after being hacked, into her own blog. Denise was one of the guest poets/hosts for the Forum in 2008, and she has managed to re-post (with permissions) the archived material on her own blog. The topics included are: “poetics, Charles Olson, Kenneth Irby, William Stafford, Victor Contoski, Lyn Hejinian…, William J. (Billy Joe) Harris, language poetry (lang-po), poetry editors, nature poetry, poetry forums, exploration, individuality, Patricia Traxler.., Donald Levering (poem), deep image, poetry month as ghetto, increase in published books of poetry, Stephen Bunch (and poem), poetry community, Wes Jackson, Judith Roitman (and emoji poems), Joseph Harrington on hybridity and interzones, syllabic measure, and Harley Elliott, Harrington on “passive conversation.” This is some fascinating material that you can check out on the link here and on the links page of this web

Bill Nevins, host of the Krypton Blue restaurant reading series, has kindly invited me to be the featured poet reading on Tuesday, August 9th at 7:00.  People are invited to arrive before 7:00 to dine and sign-up for the open mic which follows the feature reading. Krypton Blue is at 6040 NE Brentwood Lane in Albuquerque.

Just as Summer Solstice burned its way through our calendars, Jessica Isaacs and Rayshell Clapper, editors of Dragon Poet Review, posted the Summer 2016 issue, which includes a poem of mine, a lament really, regarding the devastating fracking which has made Oklahoma the earthquake capital of the nation. The scale of these operations is staggering–whole trains of hopper cars haul sand from north central states to Oklahoma  to pump in a lethal slurry into the earth to force petroleum products out of rock.  Find the poem here (go to page 49) or on the Links page of this web site.

Katie Stromme notified me that my poem, “Terrorists,” was selected as one of two Runners-Up for the 2016 Ruth Stone Poetry Prize.  I had shown a draft of this poem to Tony Hoagland, Steve Bunch, Wayne Lee, and Michael Scofield, who offered some editing suggestions which must have helped it in the eyes of the final judge, Lee Upton.  Hunger Mountain will publish the runner-up poems, and both poets will receive a monetary payment. Please see Hunger Mountain’s announcement.

Two Hawks Quarterly out of Antioch University in Los Angeles have posted the June 2016 issue with my poem “Accidents of the Holy Family.” Gaudi’s grandiose cathedral may be familiar to readers, if the fatalism and familial drama are not. See the Links page of this web site.

You never know what you might find if you type your own name into the search bar. I discovered that in addition to putting out fine printed copies of their journal, the editors of Santa Fe Literary Review have been posting the issues on line. So I found six of my poems in as many issues going back to 2008. You can see them by going to the Links page of this web site. Oh and I also found an essay and two poems from my time at the 2001 W. B. Yeats International Summer School in Sligo, Ireland online in The Drunken boat, and posted it as well.

In the 3rd week of my stay at the Willapa Bay Artist Residency, the artist-residents were invited to “show & tell” what they’d been working on. My offering, a 15 minute reading was audio-taped by visual artist Jeannette Louie. You can listen to it on youtube via a link provided on the “Selected Works” page of this site.

Going back to 1999, I’ve had three poems published in Flint Hills Review, the literary magazine of Emporia State University ably shepherded by the poet/drummer/professor Kevin Rabas. Now I am pleased that they want to use a poem about an imagined airliner disaster called “Another Chance” for the magazine’s 21st issue.

My latest book, Coltrane’s God, took first place in the Poetry Book Category in the annual New Mexico Press Women Competition.  Quoth the judge: “The poetry in this book is moving and involves the reader emotionally.” As a first place winner in a state Press Women contest, it will automatically be submitted to this year’s National Federation of Press Women contest.