Semi-Urban Cartography

It’s been a few months since I heard of my acceptance from The Deronda Review but to my surprise in the mail on Saturday I finally got my two contributor copies. Volume III. Issue #1, Fall and Winter of 2009-10. Immediately I opened the 8 1/2 x 11 magazine up and looked down the list for my poem, “Self-Inflicted Famine.” I read it through to be certain of its condition now that it was no longer exclusively mine. Oddly for as often as I obsess about the ‘word on the page’ factor, I didn’t take into account what it looked like until I read the magazine a second time. My hope was that I would appear next to the few poets I admire whose work was in this issue — to be alongside Lyn Lifshin and Judy Belsky would be an honor — but instead it appeared in the second section of the magazine, entitled “The Ways of Life” and it stacked on top of Gordon Ramel’s “Emblyona” a 41-year old Australian poet. Sorry Gordo. I’m going to Google your work though.

It’s a rare event that makes me hungry every time it happens. There’s a unique thrill in opening up a new magazine in advance of the public, read acknowledgements and contributor notes and know that’s you. I’ve got so much work out there in the world now I can hardly keep track. It’s good to get the yes and the pages, the latter seemingly a closing window of creative expression.

NOTE: I’m including a link to the Deronda website even though what they have on-line isn’t too exciting. I have posted the poem here though:

A SELF-INFLICTED FAMINE

The storm gave away all our things; the storm, rattling the

ground below.  I was a cup and saucer then.

Unfilled, I was a shaking cup and saucer merely, in the

storm without rain.  We fought in all our clothes; then

we fought the storm; then we fought each other.  Then

alone, because we could no longer identify the outlines of

our clothes.  As the lines of the storm without rain

were drawn and constantly redrawn, it was now that I fell

from the cup and saucer, spilled from its lip

errantly.

But I was also the saver of seed.  There were fruits

in the storm, in the cup and saucer, and we waited

to be

saved, for the storm to return all out things.  It did not.

We found that instead, it had taken all soils, leaving

nothing

except impenetrable clay at our feet.  We would be so

reminded, broken spade the results of subsequent digging.

Though the

storm gave away all our things, these soils, these

ancient soils, our hopes given; though we’ve been left

barren of these, so I have saved for the coming alluvium.

AUGUST 2005