It’s hard not to get whiplash this week, switching between disasters in Japan and the revolution in Libya. My heart still sends up many prayers to suffering Japan. Japan has a tradition of making paper cranes for luck, a tradition that found its way into one of my poems. Here’s to recovery in Japan: At the Thousand Cranes Auto Repair The women were making and the men waitingin the room provided. Folding a square piece…
Ghost Hours 1. Spring ForwardThe government’s at it again, tampering time. We stagger behind, wishing Salvador Dali minutes would lag instead of leap. April, the month of taxes and poetry, trails us like an urchin, asking for thankswhile we are thanked by the government with jet-lag and loss of easeful dark.Do you really expect us to pump the big-top minutes in this shell gamewith lifespan, this unsought forward-swap?And where do the authorities keep my acrobat…
I have a friend who closets herself in her study for two hours each morning before work in order to write. I don’t ask her what “writing” includes. Does it mean dreaming as she looks out the window at the deer grazing in her yard, or preparing batches of poems to submit, or writing a book review, or shuffling through the pages of a file labeled “Poems in Progress,” or lying back on the couch…
Because it’s that kind of day … Every Morning I Try to pronounce a divine name perfectly, knowing I can’t really say its swallow-swingor enunciate the syllables a mockingbird loops in medleys, can’t whisper vowels of an airplane’s rhyming trail.Names like that must be repeated as a flower lets pollen fly. I should mimic the closed bud’s wise pause. My human mouth can hardly shape the million-zinnia alpha letter, let alonethe final plosive dazzle –…
I woke up feeling that today will allow a great deal of creative thought — thanks to some mysterious force, the laws of which we haven’t yet discovered. This poem, which originally appeared in Eclectic Journal, is my ode to those unknown, expansive forces. Twice As Much Starlight The universe, say surprised astronomers, has twice as much accumulated starlight as can be explained by all the known stars and galaxies. — Newspaper article, 1998. This…
We’ve had two family members with dementia, possibly Alzheimer’s, in the last few years. My father died a year and a half ago from it, and his wife now has it. Having been appointed her conservator, I feel as if I’ve now acquired a new, ninety-year-old child. Her well-being is my responsibility. While she dazes off into the eternal present, I pay bills and handle legal matters, locate doctors and confer with geriatric specialists. Thank…
These are the moments when I truly begin to wonder about my memory, but actually I think if I did get an email about this, my spam filter ate it. Because I’d remember THIS! My poem “Mesmer” was nominated by that marvelous zine, Pirene’s Fountain, for Best of the Web 2010 (Dzanc Books). Thanks, editor Ami Kaye, and others on the Pirene’s team. I’m just delighted. And my apologies for not thanking you sooner! Here’s…
Got the new issue of Off the Coast, with my poem “Anniversary” in it. Nice to see the poetry of some friends in the same issue. Good-looking journal! I’m pleased to have work in it. In other po-news, Soundzine is now reading for its next issue. It ‘s a print-and-sound zine, with readings of all the poems by the poets. Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.
A long, long time ago, in a life that now seems faraway, my agent suggested I start a blog to help promote the memoir we hoped to soon sell, my book Rocket Lessons. In that book, I wrote about growing up as the daughter of a bipolar rocket scientist in the Cold War era (think Dr. Strangelove). Things have a way of evolving, and my writing evolved more in the direction of poetry than prose,…
I found a couple of small publishers that consider poetry manuscripts (or queries about manuscripts) outside of contests. Take a look at my page: Non-Contest Poetry Book Publishers. Please let me know if you know of others. I’d like to make this as comprehensive a resource as possible. Hope your 2011 is starting off poetically! Visit https://racheldacus.net for more information and writing by Rachel Dacus.