Coming up on Saturday, May 25th, Scott Wiggerman has kindly invited me to be a featured reader at the NM State Poetry Society Poetry Picnic in Albuquerque.  I will reading in the 2:30-3:15 pm slot along with Megan Baldrige and my long-time poetry pal Dale Harris. There will be many poetry-related fun activities happening all day. The location is: Open Space Visitor Center (OSVC), 6500 Coors Blvd NW, Albuquerque, NM 87120.

Then on Thursday, June 20 at 7:00 pm, I get to do a reading with the esteemed Leslie Ullman at SOMOS at 108-B Civic Plaza in Taos. The next day from 10:00 AM to 1:00 PM, I will be conducting my popular Pumping Up the Pantoum Workshop again at SOMOS.

On the weekend of July 13th and 14th, I get to be the poetry part of Don McIver’s Chatter Performances. This is a monthly combination poetry-music gig in both Santa Fe and Albuquerque. I will be teamed with Joseph Johnson, who will be playing Benjamin Britten and J. S. Bach on cello. Both performances commence at 10:30 AM. The Santa Fe performance is at 10:30 AM on July 13th at SITE Santa Fe, 1606 Paseo de Peralta. The Albuquerque show is at 10:30 AM on July 14th at Las Puertas, 1512 1st Street NW.  Check out the Chatter website.  Joseph Johnson’s web site explains that the cello he uses was made in 1780. That gives me pause.

All the above events are listed on the calendar on this website.

Mary-Charlotte Domendi of RadioCafe podcast fame invited me and five other Santa Fe poets to read love poems for Valentine’s Day. I’m honored to be joined by Arthur Sze, Carol Moldaw, Israel Haros, Miriam Sagan, and Melena Morling in this program.

My outrage at the death of the wife of a younger poet friend of mine from an entirely preventable cause was the basis of “Small Things” that American Literary Review posted in its online Fall 2018 edition.

I was delighted to be notified today that Carmen Giménez Smith selected my poem, “An Egyptian Myth,” as the Carve magazine annual contest winner. The prize comes with a $1,000 award and publication in the spring 2019 issue of the magazine. https://www.carvezine.com/prose-poetry-contest/

Jay Udall & Katherine Conner keep adding ingredients to their New Orleans literary gumbo. This time from me two family-related poems from a new manuscript. The first one, about my late brother,  https://www.nicholls.edu/gris-gris/uncategorized/reverend-golf/ , and the second about my mother, who passed about two months before my brother. https://www.nicholls.edu/gris-gris/uncategorized/sounds-within-the-widows-walls/ Both poems take some literary license w/ the facts, but both cleave to emotional truth.

I received my contributor’s copy of the literary journal out of SUNY in Plattsburg, NY, Saranac Review. It  includes two poems of mine, “Firebug!” and “Uprising.” Both refer to racial injustice in this country. “Uprising” is an ekphrastic poem based on Susan List’s painting “Four Arts,” that I saw in a small museum Palm Beach, FL when I was there for a workshop a few years ago. I was happy to see my friend Joseph Bruchac’s two poems in the magazine as well other poets of note, such as Laurie Sewall, Aimee Sands, and Ricardo Pau-Llosa.  I didn’t know Joseph was so prolific; his bio note says he is the author of “over 130 books in many genres.” The rest of us have some catching up to do.

Michael Theune ‘s Structure & Surprise blog picked up on my Poems with a Turn Workshop presented earlier this year at the NM State Poetry Society (NMSPS) annual conference. I’m grateful to him for noticing our similar craft-based interest in the art.

Michael Theune, author of Structure & Surprise, informed me that the renown Catholic journal, Commonweal, posted two of my poems in its online edition. I had not known that “Unraptured” and “Visitant” were online, although I had previously received my contributor’s copies of the print edition.  These poems are both about my late mother, one imaginary, the other, a “real” experience.

I’m very pleased to be invited to read at Onyxswan Gallery on July 14 at 6 and 7 pm (two 15-20 minute readings). The event is an opening for a show by pastel painters Jane Shoenfeld and Katherine Irish called Abstractions in Nature. I will be reading some poems about painting as well as selections from my forthcoming book Previous Lives. The gallery is located at 323 Romero Street NW, Suite 1, in Albuquerque (505-243-1393).

I am happy to announce that Red Mountain Press has accepted Previous Lives for publication in the fall of 2018. The working subtitle is, New and Selected Early Poems. The book will include “best of” selections from my first eight books, as well as recent work,