To my surprise, a columnist (Katie Haegele) from the Philadelphia Inquirer contacted me about the poem sparks I’ve been writing for Poets.org. Next thing I knew, there’s an article about them in the newspaper! Very cool. Check it out:

Her forum seeks to spark poetry, introduce poets’ to others work

From the article:

“Hmm.

I did some online searching and found a number of poetry Web sites, many with participatory forums. The one actually using the term Poem Spark was the discussion forum of Poets.org, the Web site of the Academy of American Poets.

The forum’s administrator is Christine Klocek-Lim, a poet and photographer who lives in northeastern Pennsylvania. At the time she joined the forum as a volunteer moderator in 2005, it offered things like listings of conferences and grants and a workshop in which writers post their work for critique by other participants.

“After looking at some other online workshops, I realized that many of them had exercises that they used to prompt the writing of new poems,” said Klocek-Lim. She wanted to add a feature like that, but didn’t want to use the term “exercise.”

So the Poem Spark was born.”

One of my poems is in the print anthology of MiPOesias called the Best of Cafe Cafe, Summer 2007. It is 47 pages and sells for $6.99 on Lulu.com.

Also in the anthology: AnnMarie Eldon, Alexander Dickow, Amy King, Birdie Jaworski, Pearl Pirie, Diego Quiros, Edward Nudelman, Elvie Shockley, Jennifer Bredl, Jim Knowles, Jordan Stempleman, Laurel K Dodge, Letitia Trent, Michelle M Buchanan, Rathanak Michael Keo, Rick Mullin, Rus Bowden and Terry Lucas.

I am exceedingly pleased to announce the debut issue of a new, online journal:

The Externalist

I have a poem appearing in this issue, Hiking Blue Mountain. There are quite a few other goodies to peruse, as well: fiction, prose, poetry, and criticism. Go check it out!

National Poetry Month was created in 1996 by the Academy of American Poets. They have a great National Poetry Month page where you can find all sorts of interesting things: their new Poetfan contest, Life Lines (I wrote one last year), sign up to receive a Poem-a-Day in your email this month, and much more.

If you’re brave, you can participate in the Poets.org’s discussion forum‘s NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Writing Month) activity and write a poem-a-day for the entire month of April.

I’m going to try it. The only reason I’m going to try it is because it emphasizes quantity over quality. I average one good poem a month, maybe. I’m hoping this exercise will force me to generate a whole slew of possible-poems and fragments that I can revise into something later.

My personal website, November Sky, has been updated! Some new photos from 2007 have been added. New poems from 2006 and one from 2007 have been added (a few with audio). Go check it out!

The Pedestal Magazine is an excellent journal and I’m very pleased to be in this month’s issue. To see my poem, “Partial Building Collapse,” follow this link.

I’ve a few poems and photos in the second issue of Concelebratory Shoehorn Review. The editor, Maurice Oliver, has done some really nice work with this issue and I’m very pleased to be included. Check out some of the original artwork, too. I was particularly taken with Magyar’s paintings.