We are now in the full porch-swing of summer, which means Summer Poetry Salons at my beloved Lit House. In celebration of the second salon of the summer on June 24 (tomorrow!), I was given the unbelievably fun task of designing and printing a letterpress broadside for Jamaal May's poem "There Are Birds Here," a love song for Detroit. As much I loved this poem on my first reading (and second and third), it was a particularly difficult design challenge. Don't get me wrong — there are so many ways to illustrate this poem because it is so packed with images. But to illustrate it in a way that actually adds to the text, that builds on the complex foundation set down by the poet — that is the challenge to be met. That is the challenge we always aim to meet at the Literary House Press . So that means no birds and no buildings. For me, those are the two most obvious, but least important images in this poem. Those details are just the shell around the ...
I have not given up on eventual publication in my beloved Fairy Tale Review. I have been positively glowing since the last lovely rejection letter I received from them. Their reading period for the upcoming The Brown Issue is now open and I have just polished up three new poems to send in. So, today I have submitted them--"Dark and Stormy Night" (written while reading Madeleine L'Engle's A Wind in the Door), "Foxwife" (a parody of Anne Sexton's poem "Housewife") and "Into the Woods" (heavily influenced by strong doses of Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales)--and all that is left for me to do is wait.
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